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LETTERS 

OX THE 

LAWS OF MAN'S NATURE 

AND 

DEVELOPMENT. 



LETTERS 



LAWS OF MAN'S NATURE 



DEVELOPMENT. 

BY 

HENRY GEORGE ATKINSON, F.G.S. 

M 

HARRIET MARTINEAU. 



" But the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the 
"Will : for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of Man, which 
is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on 
earth which setteth up a throne, or chair of state, in the spirits and souls of men, and in 
their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning."— Bacon. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOSIAH P. MENDUM 

35 Washington Street. 
1851. 






Gift 
MR. HUTCHi 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY 



PREFACE 



This book is in reality what it appears to be, — 
a correspondence between two friends. The re- 
sponsibility for its publication is mine. For some 
years, I had been taking a stronger and stronger 
interest in Mr. Atkinson's views on a group of sub- 
jects which I had been contemplating from my 
youth up, with incessant curiosity, and, till of late, 
slight satisfaction. Last year, I asked him to per- 
mit me to inquire of him, in some sort of sequence, 
about his researches into the nature and position of 
the Human Being ; and the replies I have received 
seemed to me to require of us both the discharge 
of that great social duty, — to impart what we 
believe, and what we think we have learned. I 
therefore suggested the publication of our letters. 
Among the few things of which we can pronounce 
ourselves certain, is the obligation of inquirers after 
truth to communicate what they obtain ; and there 
is nothing in the surprise, reluctance, levity, or 
disapprobation of any person, or any number of 
persons, which can affect that certainty. It may 
a* 



VI PREFACE. 

be, or it may not be, that there are some who 
already hold our views, and many who are prepared 
for them, and needing them. It is no part of 
our business to, calculate or conjecture the reception 
that our correspondence is likely to meet with. 
The one of us has earned, and the other has re- 
ceived, some knowledge, and both of us have thence 
come to entertain views which we value ; and the 
first duty belonging to the privilege is to impart 
what we believe to be true. 

It will at once occur to every considerate reader, 
that to establish by evidence and argument the 
facts and conclusions contained in these Letters 
would require many volumes. If we put out only 
one, its contents must be merely expository ; and 
such, and nothing more, is the character of this 
volume. It has neither the compass, nor the order, 
nor the relative proportion, of a treatise. I believe 
that it has substance and connection enough to 
make it of value in its actual shape. Such as it is, 
we send it forth in the hope that we shall be cor- 
rected where we are wrong, enlightened where we 
are dim or blind, and sympathized with by those 
who estimate truth and freedom as we do. 

HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
Ambleside, November. 1850. 



MOTTOES 



" To generate and superinduce a new nature, or new natures, 
upon a given body, is the labor and aim of human power : whilst 
to discover the form or true difference of a given nature, or the 
nature to which such nature is owing, or source from which it 
emanates (for these terms approach nearest to an explanation of 
our meaning), is the labor and discovery of human knowledge." 
— Bacon: Novum Organum, Aph. 1, Book 2d. 

"It is our office, as faithful secretaries, to receive and note 
down such (laws) as have been enacted by the voice of Nature 
herself: and our trustiness must stand acquitted, whether they 
are accepted, or by the suffrage of general opinion, rejected. 
Still, we do not abandon the hope that in times yet to come, indi- 
viduals may arise who will both be able to comprehend and 
digest the choicest of those things ; and solicitous also to carry 
them to perfection." — Bacon : Anticipations of the Second PhU 
losophy. 

" The true end, scope, or office of knowledge, I have set down 
to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or admired 
discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting and 
working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before, for 
the better endowment and help of Man'3 life." — Bacon : Inter- 
pretation of Nature. 

" Concerning the publication of novel facts, there can be but 
one judgment ; for facts are independent of fashion, taste, and 
caprice, and are subject to no code of criticism. They are more 



V2I1 MOTTOES. 

useful, perhaps, even when they contradict, than when they sup- 
port, received doctrines ; for our theories are only imperfect ap- 
proximations to the real knowledge of things." — Sir H. Davy. 

"The state of the speculative faculties, the character of the 
propositions assented to, essentially determines the moral and 
political state of the community, as we have already seen that it 
determines the physical. Every considerable change historically 
known to us in the condition of any portion of mankind, has 
been preceded by a change of proportional extent in the state 
of their knowledge, or in their prevalent beliefs." — Mill : Sys- 
tem of Logic. 

" The deep philosopher sees chains of causes and effects so 
wonderfully and strangely linked together, that he is usually the 
last person to decide upon the impossibility of any two series of 
events being independent of each other ; and in Science, so many 

natural miracles, as it were, have been brought to light, 

that the physical inquirer is seldom disposed to assert, confident- 
ly, on any abstruse subjects belonging to the order of natural 
things; and still less so, on those relating to the more myste- 
rious relations of moral events and intellectual natures." — Sir 
H. Davy : on Omens. 

" The Ancients, whose genius was less limited, and whose 
philosophy was more extended, wondered less than we do at 
facts which they could not explain. They had a better view of 
Nature, such as she is : a sympathy, a singular correspondence, 
was to them only a phenomenon, while to us it is a paradox, 
when we cannot refer it to our pretended laws of motion." — 
Buffon. 

" It does not become the spirit which characterizes the present 
age, distrustfully to reject every generalization of views, and 
every attempt to examine into the nature of things, by the process 
of reason and induction." — Humboldt : Introduction to Cosmos. 

" With regard to authority, it is the greatest weakness to at- 
tribute infinite credit to particular authors, and to refuse his own 
prerogative to Time, the author of all authors, and, therefore, of 



MOTTOES. IX 

all authority. It is not wonderful, therefore, if the bonds of 
antiquity, authority, and unanimity have so enchained the 
power of Man, that he is unable (as if bewitched) to become 
familiar with things themselves." — Bacon : Nov. Org., Aph. 84. 

" Moreover, in these mixtures of divinity and philosophy, the 
received doctrines only of the latter are included ; and any nov- 
elty, even though it be an improvement, scarcely escapes banish- 
ment and extermination." — Bacon : Nov. Org., Aph. 89. 

" For if they mean that the ignorance of a second cause doth 
make men more devoutly to depend upon the Providence of God, 
as supposing the effect to come immediately from his hand, I de- 
mand of them, as Job demanded of his friends, « Will you lie for 
God, as man will for man, to gratify him ? ' " — Bacon : Interpre- 
tation of Nature. 



can subsist without certain properties. It is only the metaphys- 
ical theologians that have embraced the error that all activity 
and all action is owing to a spiritual being, and that inertia is the 
essence of matter." — Gall. 

In regard to Astronomy, " Almost all its conclusions stand in 
open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vul- 
gar observation, and with what appears to every one, till he has 
understood and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most 
positive evidence of his senses." — Sir John .Herschel. 

"The opinions of men are received according to the ancient 

belief, and upon trust, as if it were religion and law." 

" Another religion, other witnesses, and like promises and 
threats, might by the same way imprint a quite contrary belief." 
— Montaigne. 

" Is our faith on the sand or on a rock ? Is it too brittle to 
bear touching ? " — Archbishop of Dublin. 1850. 

" Hobbes mentions the true revelation ; but clearly shows he 
does not believe it. Hallam considers him an Atheist. I hava 



X MOTTOES. 

equal right to consider Bacon so. Descartes, Hallam says, pro- 
fessed a belief in the motion of the sun, to save himself with the 
priests. And Hobbes thinks Aristotle did not speak as he really- 
thought. It is surely time all this lying and counter-lying should 
be put a stop to, or a help be rendered to so worthy an end, — 
that men's minds may expand as freely as any other growth of 
nature. But in our time, — no. The honey is not for us, but to 
work the cell ; — to work in faith and hope, in the love of truth, 
and for justice' sake. This is enough ; — enough for the strong. 
And for the weak, they should not leave their mother's side." — 
Private Letter- 

" Add to the power of discovering truth, the desire of using it 
for the promotion of human happiness, and you have the great 
end and object of our existence. This is the immaculate model 
of excellence that every human being should fix in the chambers 
of his heart ; which he should place before his mind's eye from 
•the rising to the setting of the sun, — to strengthen his under- 
standing that he may direct his benevolence, and to exhibit to 
the world the most beautiful spectacle the world can behold, — 
of consummate virtue guided by consummate talents." — Sydney 
Smith : Moral Philosophy, p. 94. 



CONTENTS 



Letter 



1.— 
2.— 
3.— 

4. — 
5.— 
6.— 

7.— 



Preface 

Mottoes 

Inquiry for a Basis 

Proposal of a Basis 

Preparation of the Ground . . . 

What is the Brain ? . 

Inquiry about its Structure 

Early Days of Phrenology 

Inquiry for New Discoveries 

Methods of New Discovery. Organic Arrangement 

of the Brain ..... 

Illustrative Cases 

Organic Arrangement of the Cerebrum 
Dr. Howe's Report on Idiocy 
The Senses and Nervous System 
Illustrative Comment .... 

Facts about the Senses under various Conditions 

Raising Questions, 

Bacon on Matter and Causation. Inferences 

Dreams. Association of Ideas 

Nothing 

Knowledge and Notions. Results of each 



and 



v 
vii 
1 
5 
11 
16 
25 
29 
42 

47 

66 

74 

91 

98 

121 

130 

161 

169 
206 
207 



Xil CONTENTS. 

Letter Page 

19. — Release from Notions. Entrance upon Knowledge 222 

20. — Natural History of Superstition .... 229 
21= — Theology and Science 250 

22. -- Central Law and Pervasive Unity. Light. Sense 

of Identity. Ghost-seeing. Unrevealed Human 

Relations 257 

23. — Position and Privilege of Truth-seekers . . . 288 

24. — Position and Privilege of Truth-speakers . . . 292 

Appendix . . . 299 



LETTERS 



ON THE LAWS OF 



MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT, 



I. 

INQUIRY FOR A BASIS. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

My dear Friend, 

I rather think the reason why we have so much 
pleasure in talking over, and writing about, the 
powers and action of men, and the characters of in- 
dividuals, is, that your observations proceed upon 
some basis of real science, and that I know that 
they do ; and that thus we are talking to some pur- 
pose on the most interesting subjects, instead of 
theorizing without taking stock of our facts on the 
one hand, or merely amusing ourselves with desul- 
tory observations on the other. I want, however, 
to look closer into the matter. I want to know 
precisely what your scientific basis is, instead of 
merely profiting by your having one, and having a 
general notion how you came by it. I want you 
to tell me, with great particularity, (if you will,) 
how you would have one set about the study of the 
powers of Man, in order to understand his nature, 
1 



2 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and his place, business and pleasure in the uni- 
verse. 

For thirty years past I have been disposed to this 
kind of study ; and it is strange to think how many 
books I have read, and how often over, and what 
an amount of hours I have spent in thinking, and 
how many hundreds of human beings I have watched 
and speculated upon, without being ever, for one 
moment, satisfied that I knew what I was about, — 
for want, I suppose, of some scientific basis for the 
inquiry, and of some laws manifesting themselves 
in its course ; — laws on which one might rest, and 
to which one might recur, when in perplexity how 
to proceed. I am sure I do not wonder at scientific 
men sneering at metaphysics, if the case be at all 
as I suppose it : — that Natural Philosophy and 
Mental Philosophy are arbitrarily separated ; — that 
the one is in a regenerate state (thanks to Bacon), 
and the other in an unregenerate state ; — and that 
we can no more get on in Mental Philosophy with- 
out an ascertainment of the true method of inquiry, 
than the men of the middle ages could get on with 
Natural Philosophy (except in the departments of 
detail), till a man rose up to give us a Novum Or- 
ganon Scientiarum. And why Mental Philosophy 
is not yet included among the sciences which are 
benefiting by the Novum Organon of Bacon is a 
thing that I am quite unsatisfied about. I do not 
mean that I at all wonder that the greater number 
of students have recourse to unsound methods ; be- 
cause we see that the fact is so with the greater 



INQUIRY FOR A BASIS. S 

number of physical inquirers, — the true followers 
of Bacon being few indeed among Natural philos- 
ophers, as they are called. My wonder is, — not 
that there are few so-called Mental philosophers 
who use or even advocate any experimental method 
of inquiry into the science of mind ; but that there 
seem to me to be none. If I am wrong as to the 
fact, tell me ; and pray point out where I may find 
such, if you know them to exist. 

I am well aware what the answer of metaphysi- 
cians to this difficulty of mine would be. They 
would plead the totally different and incompatible 
nature of the two regions of inquiry, and therefore 
of the method of penetrating those regions. But 
this is exactly what I am not satisfied about. When 
I look at the course of metaphysical inquiry from 
the beginning to this day, I see something very 
much like the course of physical inquiry from the 
beginning to Bacon's day : and I am not sure that 
Bacon may not yet. throw down the barrier between 
the two regions, and make them one. When I 
look back upon the two paths, it seems to me that 
I see the same Idols set up for worship on the way- 
side ; and I hear the same excuses for wild theoriz- 
ing in both departments, — that spiritual agencies 
are at work, which can be recognized only by each 
man for himself, by means of a special spiritual 
sense of which no one can give an account. Now, 
Science has disabused us of our blinding and per- 
plexing notions of spiritual anti-types of material 
things, and of spiritual interference in material 



4 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

operations ; and we have arrived at the notion of 
chance-excluding Law in the physical operations of 
the universe. I want to know why it is not possi- 
ble for us to pursue the same process in regard to 
Mental Philosophy ; — why we are to take for 
granted that the two regions of science are so un- 
like, that the same principle of inquiry is not appli- 
cable to both ; — and if so, what we are to do next ; 
for we cannot remain forever as hopelessly adrift on 
the sea of conjecture about the truths of Mental 
Science as we are now. I do not ask you, how- 
ever, to make an express reply to every thing I 
may put in the form of a question, — as above. If 
you will tell me how you would set to work to as- 
certain the powers of Man, in order to understand 
his position and destiny in the Universe, that will 
include an answer to my speculations on past 
methods of inquiry. 

Your ideas will descend upon this locality in 
curious contrast with some which are to be found 
here. I like to talk with the gardener, and the 
cowherd's wife, and any workman who may relish 
a bit of talk on Sundays, on their notions of how 
body and mind should be treated, and what they 
are living for, and what is wrong and right in mor- 
als. There is much amusement and instruction in 
hearing them lay down the law about health and 
duty. And then, when I meet a poet here, and a 
scholar there, and a Quaker or Swedenborgian re- 
ligionist somewhere else, it seems to me that I have 
been carried back some thousands of years, to the 



PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 5 

time when science was composed of dreaming, and 
when men's instincts constituted the mythology 
under which they lived. It is all very interesting, 
however, and all worthy of respect. To us, who 
are in search of facts, there is no dream of any 
intellect, no dogmatic assurance, no stirring of any 
instinct, which is not full of interest and instruc- 
tion. But I shall be glad of your answer to my 
question, as guidance in using the material fur- 
nished by my neighbors. 



II. 

PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

My dear Friend, 

By all means let us go into this inquiry and ex- 
planation. Nothing will give me greater pleasure ; 
for certainly it is most important that we should 
form a true estimate of man's nature, and ascertain 
the real basis of a science of mind. Men have 
been wandering amidst poesies, theologies, and 
metaphysics, and have been caught in the web of 
ideal creations, and have to be brought back again 
to particulars and material conditions ; to investi- 
gate the real world, and those laws of being and 
action which are the form and nature of things, 



6 MAX'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and the phenomena which they present, as they 
are here, within us and about us in reality and in 
truth, and not as we would fancy them to be. 
There are not two philosophies, one for Mind and 
another for Matter. Nature is one, and to be 
studied as a whole. " There is nothing in nature," 
says Bacon, " but individual bodies, exhibiting clear 
individual effects, according to particular laws." * 
Instinct, passion, thought, &c, are effects of organ- 
ized substances : but men have sought to make out 
a philosophy of mind, by studying these effects 
apart from causes, and have even asserted that 
mind was entirely independent of body, and hav- 
ing some unintelligible nature of its own, called 
free will, — not subject to law, or dependent on 
material conditions ; though a man has no more 
power to determine his own will than he has wings 
to fly. Of course, I need not say to you that these 
popular notions are mere delusion. I cannot tell 
you how odd it seems to me to have to assert such 
a self-evident fact. All the conditions of man and 
mental peculiarities are now traced to physical 
causes and conditions, exhibiting clear determining 
laws. The instinct of animals and the mental 
condition of men are all phenomena exhibited as a 
consequence of the bodily condition, and the in- 
fluences which have been acting upon it. This 
is now as clearly understood as the physical con- 
ditions and cause of the rainbow and of the thun- 

* Novum Organon, II. Aph. 2. 



PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 7 

der-storm. What men are for the most part be- 
lieving now is a kind of insanity ; but, as Bacon 
says truly, " those who resolve not to conjecture 
and divine, but to discover and know ; not to in- 
vent buffooneries and fables about worlds, but to 
inspect, and, as it were, dissect the nature of this 
real world, must derive all from things them- 
selves." 

We know nothing fundamental of nature, nor 
can we conceive any thing of the nature of the 
primary cause. We know not, nor can we know, 
what things really are, but only what they appear 
to us ; and the relations of their appearances. The 
form of these relations we term Law. Whatever 
is must have a form of being and action. It can- 
not be what it is not ; but must be subject to the 
form or law of its constitution. Even supposing 
the mind was an entity separable from the body, 
and acting independently of body, it must still have 
a nature of its own, and be determined by the form 
of that nature ; and this form of being and action 
we term Law. Nothing can be of itself, or change 
its condition, unless it be acted upon by something 
else. A man cannot of himself, or by his will, 
become a tree, any more than a triangle can by 
any means become a circle : nor are more causes 
to be admitted than are sufficient to produce any 
particular change or effect. Hence we require no 
supernatural causes when we can recognize ade- 
quate natural causes inherent in the constitution 
of nature. The phenomena of instinct and reason 



8 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

are no exception or anomaly in nature. The dif- 
ferent characters of men arise from the differences 
in the substance and form of their being ; just as it 
is with other animals, and with plants and stones. 
For every effect, there is a sufficient cause ; and all 
causes are material causes, influenced by surround- 
ing circumstances ; which is nothing more than 
matter being influenced by matter. I observe that 
drunkenness and madness, idiocy, genius, sleep, 
dreams, murder, charity, are effects, the conse- 
quence of material conditions ; absolutely and 
wholly so. If I pour a bottle of wine down a 
man's throat, he becomes drunk. If I press a splin- 
ter of bone into the brain, madness ensues. I want 
no devil to account for these effects. Again, if I 
place a naturally good disposition under favorable 
circumstances, goodness is invariably the result. 
If I place a naturally ill-disposed person under 
unfavorable circumstances, evil is necessarily the 
result. I want no good spirit in the one case, nor 
evil spirit in the other, to account for those facts, 
any more than to account for geese being geese, 
and green gooseberries being acid, and those which 
have ripened by exposure to the sun being of a 
delicious flavor. We now can perceive precisely 
why men think as they do ; how they are deceived 
by their own thoughts and feelings : otherwise, 
their seeming total apathy, — their inability to 
comprehend the nature of science, and the neces- 
sity of universal law, would make us despair of 
progress. 



PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 9 

The reason why you are interested in my thoughts 
and opinions is, not that I have more ability than 
others, but that I have endeavored, under favorable 
circumstances, to renounce all idols and supersti- 
tions, and have drawn close to nature, to examine 
into causes. In material conditions I find the 
origin of all religions, all philosophies, all opinions, 
all virtues, and " spiritual conditions and influ- 
ences," in the same manner that I find the origin 
of all diseases and of all insanities, in material con- 
ditions and causes. I have followed Bacon's meth- 
od, because there is no other that can lead to any 
discovery and practical results, or represent nature. 
I have but one earnest desire in life, which is to 
acquire knowledge ; and a knowledge of human 
nature in particular, — that being the most impor- 
tant and the most needed. And I would freely 
utter, on all occasions, what I know and believe, 
honestly and without reserve, or regard for the 
opinion of a world which is full of superstition and 
hypocrisy on the one side, while on the other we 
see the mental powers of men crushed by excessive 
labor, or excessive indolence and indulgence. 

Man is every where against his fellow-man, and 
every nation is ruled by the sword, or other symbol 
of force, and none by knowledge and virtue. No 
moral principle or religious system or belief will ele- 
vate men and set them free, except such as is based 
on a knowledge of causes, and the result of a true 
science of human nature. This position I think 
we may stand on, as upon a rock, " and thence 



10 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

observe the wanderings up and down of other men." 
But I do not wish to dispute with any men, about 
their belief or their morals, or their laws of expe- 
diency j for I say that all the systems of the whole 
world are wrong ; — they being all founded on error 
in the ignorance of natural causes and material 
conditions. I have nothing to say to any, but that 
we must turn aside and begin afresh, from the 
beginning. What use is there in disputing with the 
Mohammedan about his prophet or his harem ? or 
with the Roman Catholic about his saints and his 
transubstantiation ? or with the English Protestant 
about, his dull formalism, his services, and his 
worldly pride, and vulgar regard for wealth ? We 
must begin at the beginning, and exhibit the inher- 
ent causes of all the various beliefs and passions 
which have so long triumphed over truth and Man's 
better nature. We must exhibit the real, funda- 
mental and material causes of men's thoughts : and 
out of a knowledge of human nature will grow 
a wisdom and revelation of principles which will 
revolutionize the world, and become the guide of 
man in legislation and education. Let us not 
assume any thing, but interpret the book of na- 
ture. Thus may we lay hold of the Science of 
Human Nature : and till we recognize this science, 
we live in a barbarous and dark age, and have no 
health in us. 



PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 11 

III. 

PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

Yes, — the reason why I want to understand 
your views is that which you assign ; — that you 
have ahjured idols, and come with a free mind to 
the study of a subject which is rarely entered upon 
from the beginning. It appears to me that men 
come to the subject with antecedent notions of 
" dignity of origin " for man ; with words upon their 
lips about man being made in the image of God ; 
and then, in the fear of impiety, if this notion is 
invaded, they lose their freedom, and desire to find 
the truth lying in one direction, rather than another. 
Now, from the moment that a man desires to find 
the truth on one side rather than another, it is all 
over with him as a philosopher. I doubt whether 
I have ever met with any one but yourself who 
was perfectly free from such leaning. I have some- 
times supposed that I had met with a truly impartial 
inquirer, — judging him by the sacrifices he had 
made for his convictions. But, sooner or later, out 
it comes ! He lets out, in one connection or an- 
other, that he should be sorry to believe this or 
that, which he has not yet the means of fully com- 
prehending. He may have gone further in free 
inquiry than his neighbors, and he rejoices in what 
he has attained ; yet, not the less does he pity those 



12 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

who have outstripped him, as the brethren and 
friends whom he has outstripped are pitying him. 
He says that his brethren and ancient friends can- 
not judge for him, because they have never been in 
his state of mind, — have never looked from his 
point of view ; and he straightway forgets that 
this is precisely his own position with regard to 
those by whom he is outstripped. This pitying, 
this mutual judging, is so wholly incompatible with 
an effectual pursuit of truth, that I am concerned to 
hear it going forward on every hand, — concerned 
to see that you are perhaps the only person of all 
my acquaintance that is altogether above it. I dare 
not say that I am. I can only say that I ought to 
be ashamed if I am not, for I have had some blessed 
lessons on this matter. Feeling, as 1 do, daily 
comfort in the knowledge of some things which I 
should once have shrunk from supposing, it would 
be weak, — as foolish as cowardly, — ever again to 
shrink from knowing any thing that is true, or to 
have any preferences whatever among unascertained 
matters of speculation or fact. 

As to the notion about dignity of origin that 
inquirers bring with them as their first misleading 
partiality, — it seems to me premature, in the first 
place. What we want to know is what our powers 
are, and how they work : and it would be vitiating 
the research at once to conclude, on moral grounds, 
against admitting evidence of physical fact. Such 
a kind of objection appears also to be worse than 
premature ; even foolish. Surely it is the quality 



PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 13 

of the powers alone which can determine the qual- 
ity of their origin : and if we set about objecting 
to the universal law, or to any of its applications, 
whereby great things invariably issue from small 
beginnings, we may safely conclude that it is our 
notion of dignity that is wrong, and not any one 
application of that universal law. 

For me it is enough that I am what I am ; — 
something far beyond my own power of analysis 
and comprehension. By what combination of ele- 
ments, or action of forces, I came to be what I am, 
does not at all touch my personal complacency, or 
interfere with my awe of the universe. If, be- 
cause I can at this moment think abstractedly and 
feel keenly, I abjure an origin in matter which 
cannot think, and forces which cannot feel, I can- 
not reasonably stop short of despising myself for 
having once been a babe, " mewling and puking in 
the nurse's arms." But it is enough to say that 
we are satisfied with the truism, — " Here we are ! 
We are what we are, however we came to be so." 

As to the great point of controversy between you 
and the holders of popular views and language, — 
the question whether there are two methods of 
access to knowledge of man's nature open to us, 
or one, — I think the onus rests with the holders 
that there are two, to prove their point against him 
who declares that one suffices. You are satisfied 
with observation of phenomena manifesting them- 
selves through matter. Others insist that there is 
also an interior consciousness which teaches us 
2 



14 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

things not only unattainable by other means, but 
bearing no relation to knowledge which comes by 
any other channel. We deny, for our part, having 
any interior consciousness which informs us of any 
spiritual existence antagonistic to, or apart from, 
matter. If we once . fancied we had, we have 
learned that it was through an ignorant and irrev- 
erent misapprehension of the powers and functions 
of matter. We have a right to require evidence 
of their assertion from those who say that man is 
endowed with such a means of knowledge of his 
origin and constitution. Such evidence, however, 
can never be had. All declare it to be impossible ; 
we, because we are confident that it does not exist ; 
and its advocates because facts of consciousness 
are not provable. They pity us, as Mr. Newman 
does, in his book on " the Soul : " and we are 
happy in having open before us (and in being free 
to follow it) a single path which will surely lead 
us to what we want : — happy and satisfied to agree 
with Bacon that "all things are delivered in mat- 
ter," and that " we must bring men to particulars." 

We agree that we know only conditions. We 
agree that we will not go a step beyond what we 
know. We abjure dreams, whether inbred or 
caught by infection. We must be sure of the 
assent of our understanding at every step of the 
inquiry. 

Thus is our ground agreed upon. You must 
now, if you please, do as Bacon bids you, and 
"bring me to particulars." You must exhibit to 



PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 15 

me some of those conditions which are all we 
know. We must try to put away that shadow of 
ourselves which we once took for a spirit, and 
which we now know we had no right so to pro- 
nounce upon. If we cannot set ourselves back to 
the beginning of our reflective existence, and trace 
the whole course of our ideas and experience, you 
can teach me much of that particular department 
of matter through which Mind is manifested. 

At which end will you begin ? Will you indi- 
cate to me what you conceive to be the powers of 
living beings, and trace them to their origin in the 
brain ? Or will you lay open the brain before me 
first, and follow abroad the resulting mental actions, 
till we are stopped by the limitations of our knowl- 
edge, — however well aware that there is the infi- 
nite field of the unknown lying beyond ? 

I am not a whit alarmed at that declaration of 
yours, " that all the systems of the whole world 
are wrong." Sweeping as it appears, and presump- 
tuous as many might pronounce it, it only shows 
you to have gone one step further than other peo- 
ple. Every body thinks that all the systems but 
one of the whole world are wrong ; that one being 
the system that he upholds. At the same time, J. 
believe you are more modest than they, in as far 
as you have no system to propound, but only an 
inquiry to propose. 



16 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

iy. 

WHAT IS THE BRAIN? 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

I am glad to find that we agree so far. I will 
not make any comment on your last note, because 
I see you wish to proceed, at once, into the heart 
of the subject. Nor will I now detain you with 
observations on the nature of knowledge, — or the 
facts of organic chemistry, and some other matters 
which appear to me to be fundamental to the sub- 
ject. Exactness of method does not greatly sig- 
nify, in a matter so interlaced ; where it is impos- 
sible to speak on any one point without, in some 
measure, assuming an acquaintance with some 
other department of the subject, or with some gen- 
eral notions only to be abstracted from the whole. 

What I wish to indicate in the first place, then, 
is this : — that Man has his place in natural history : 
that his nature does not essentially differ from that 
of the lower animals : that he is but a fuller develop- 
ment and varied condition of the same fundamental 
nature or cause ; of that which we contemplate as 
Matter, and its changes, relations, and properties. 
Mind is the consequence or product of the material 
man, its existence depending on the action of the 
brain. Mental Philosophy is, therefore, the physi- 
ology of the brain, as Gall termed it. Spurzheim 
called it Phrenology. Perhaps I might suggest 



WHAT IS THE BRAIN? 17 

Phreno-physiology, as a more comprehensive term. 
The proof that mind holds the same relation to 
the body, that all other phenomena do to material 
conditions (light, for instance, or instinct in ani- 
mals), and that it is not some sort of brilliant exist- 
ence lodged in the body to be clogged and tram- 
melled by earthly conditions, is to be found by all 
who will exert their senses and understanding, 
released from nursery prepossessions. It may be 
found in the whole circumstances of man's exist- 
ence, his origin and growth : the faculties follow- 
ing the development of the body in man, and in 
other animals ; the direction of the faculties being 
influenced by surrounding circumstances ; the de- 
sires, the will, the hopes, the fears, the habits and 
the opinions being effects traceable to causes — to 
natural causes — and becoming the facts of History 
and Statistics. We observe the influence of cli- 
mate, — of sunshine and damp, — of wine, and 
opium, and poisons, of health and disease — the 
circumstances of idiocy and madness ; — the differ- 
ences between individuals and their likeness to the 
lower animals, and the different condition of the 
same individual at different times. But it is unne- 
cessary to insist more to you on the evidence which 
is now generally admitted, of the relation between 
the body and mind. It is not so generally ad- 
mitted, however, that mind is the consequence and 
phenomenon only of the brain. Mind is the product 
of the brain. It is not a thing having a seat or 
home in the brain ; but it is the manifestation or 
2* 



18 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

expression of the brain in action ; as heat and light 
are of fire, and fragrance of the flower. The 
brain is not, as even some phrenologists have 
asserted, " the instrument of the mind." When a 
glass of wine turns a wise man into a fool, is it not 
clear that the result is the consequence of a change 
in the material conditions ? The thoughts and 
will are changed. Another glass, and even con- 
sciousness is laid at rest — no longer exists ; — and 
hence, such existence is clearly but a temporary 
and dependent condition ; — as much so, as light 
or heat, fragrance, beauty, or any electric or mag- 
netic phenomena. The same reasoning which 
induces the conclusion that the brain is the instru- 
ment of the mind, must force a consistent man to 
conclude that the steam engine is not the machine 
producing, but the instrument of that which is pro- 
duced by its action ; or that the galvanic apparatus 
is the instrument of a galvanic will or power. Men 
turn nature topsy-turvy, — take effects for causes, 
to suit their fancies j — in defiance of reason, and 
of all clear and true analogy. Shall we suppose 
that the music plays itself, and " uses the instru- 
ment to show forth its powers? " — not the powers 
of the instrument, but its own powers ? Shall we 
suppose a spirit not the growth of the body, but 
got there we know not how, — all manifest imper- 
fections being only the imperfections of the instru- 
ment ? — that all spirit or mind is, in reality, pure 
and equal ? and, by the same reasoning (or conclu- 
sion without reasoning), are we to imagine the 



WHAT IS THE BRAIN? 19 

" great spirit of the universe " all perfection ? and 
that all evil, , pain, blight, death, &c, are the defects 
of the instrument, Nature ? It does not appear to 
me that such assumptions would support those 
notions about free will, and some other matters, 
notions absurd in onr eyes, which they are adduced 
to uphold. When men desert nature, and neglect 
fact and reason for the imagination, they are sure 
to entangle themselves in their own web. How 
far a man does resemble an instrument will, I think, 
be better seen in contemplating the facts of phreno- 
mesmerism. There, any doubt which might remain 
in regard to the mind's independent action must, I 
think, be swept away, and the law of dependence 
be exhibited as clearly as in regard to all other 
physical fact. 

Of course, men do not, at first, receive willingly 
the intelligence of this inestimable truth, of man 
being wholly subject to law and material conditions. 
Objections arise, in opposition to new truths, at 
every step of the world's progress ; for error is the 
first growth of the infant life of the w r orld ; but 
those who study the laws of mind, and trace the 
history of objections and errors back to their 
parentage, find interest and instruction in all con- 
ditions of mind ; — in investigating the nature of 
the blight of prejudice, as well as in enjoying the 
flowers of truth. The bigot loathes every newly- 
developed truth which interferes with his assump- 
tions and self-endeared views ; but the morrow 
comes, and statues are raised to those who were per- 



20 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

secuted in their time. The new philosophy which 
looks so dark and cheerless, at first, as to make the 
youthful poet exclaim, " Philosophy would clip an 
angel's wings," becomes, ere long, the guide and 
charm of his life. 

We must keep in mind what is the scope of 
observation of the metaphysician in studying his 
consciousness, which, irrespective of the errors to 
which he is necessarily subject, is the reflection of 
what are but effects, and the mutual relations of 
such effects. It is a kind of phantasmagoria, vary- 
ing according to the nature and opinions of each 
observer, and not a philosophy at all. Philosophy 
is the observation of effects in relation to causes, in 
order to the discovery of the laws concerned. The 
results of the imperfect method are such as were our 
perceptions of light and colors, before there was a 
science of optics ; that is, previous to the tracing of 
the phenomena to their material causes ; when the 
rainbow was thought to be a mystic sign in the 
heavens. The observation of mind is now at this 
stage of progress. It appears to thousands what 
the rainbow was supposed to be a few years back ; 
a thing out of the ordinary course of nature, — - 
having a supernatural cause and a special end. But 
we are now aware that the rainbow phenomenon is 
a necessary consequence of the laws of light, which 
operate universally. I feel almost ashamed to offer 
illustrations of what seems to be such simple and 
clear matter of fact : but it is necessary to my sub- 
ject, though not perhaps for you. I will not now, 



WHAT IS THE BRAIN? 21 

however, detain you longer, but invite you to the 
consideration of the brain and its parts, in relation 
to mind, and its several faculties. 

We perceive that the body is an independent 
whole, a unity made up of dissimilar parts, each 
part having its distinct office and relation to other 
parts, and to the whole. So, likewise, is mind a 
unity, divided in like manner. The brain is the 
organ of the mind ; and each part has its special 
function, and its relation to the rest, and to the 
wants and conditions of the body at large, or to 
external nature. Even Dr. Sharpey, in his lectures at 
the London University, admits that the brain has 
special functions ; but while he is so particular in 
explaining to his pupils the nature of the facts on 
which the different views (whether he approves 
them or not) have been founded, in relation to every 
other portion of the nervous system, on coming 
to the brain he actually omits to explain the facts 
from which Gall's views are derived ; — a curious 
instance of the operation of prejudice on a mind 
which may be otherwise working w T ell ! — Plato, 
Aiistotle, Democritus, Montaigne, Bacon, and a host 
of others, have considered that the different faculties 
of the mind occupy different parts of the body : 
but they have generally erred from making causes 
out of mere sympathetic effects, in the heart, 
stomach, liver, &c. ; and, again, from not having 
discovered the means and right method of investi- 
gating the subject with success. Gall was the first 
to discover a clew to the difficulty ; to that which 



22 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

Socrates thought important ; but so difficult and 
profound as to require "a Delian diver" to find it 
out. Gall discovered the relation between the devel- 
opment of the brain and the several faculties of 
the mind, and demonstrated the true method of dis- 
secting the brain by tracing out the origin and course 
of the nerves and fibrous structure ; the common 
method being to slice it through, as if you were 
cutting up a turnip. Sir Charles Bell, by careful 
investigation, was enabled to exhibit the fact of 
there being distinct nerves for the offices of motion 
and of sensation ; thus demonstrating a general 
truth already inferred by Gall and Spurzheim, 
and confirming the fundamental principle of their 
philosophy. 

Gall proved that each faculty of the mind was a 
consequence of the action of a particular portion of 
the brain, and thus laid the foundation of a true 
science of Mind : but though the principle be cor- 
rect, that, other things being equal, size is a measure 
of power, his method of observing had its limits, 
owing to the difficulty of observing the size of 
parts with accuracy ; and more particularly with 
regard to those portions of the brain not in contact 
with outward portions of the skull, or with the 
surface exhibited in the living head. Some help 
was sought in observing brains after death : but 
this presented other difficulties, and did not avail 
much. The study of abnormal conditions of 
brain in relation to abnormal conditions of mind 
was also resorted to ; and experiments were made 



WHAT IS THE BRAIN? 23 

by injuring, irritating, or destroying certain portions 
of the brains of living animals : and comparative 
anatomy was put to the test. But very little has 
been ascertained by these last methods, beyond 
establishing the general principles of the science. 
However, the several means must be resorted to as 
helps, just as we require the various senses to cor- 
rect and confirm the impressions of each. The 
more we extend our knowledge, the more shall we 
be able to avail ourselves of the different means of 
confirmation : for it is essential to have established 
certain fixed points as landmarks, or our experi- 
ments will present to us nothing but uncertainty 
and confusion. Yery little had been ascertained by 
these various means, even after nearly half a cen- 
tury, beyond the original discoveries of Gall, with 
a few additions by his pupil and fellow-laborer, 
Spurzheim. 

On first looking into Phrenology, I felt the want 
of some additional means of observation, and the 
unsatisfactory and imperfect condition of the science. 
I found phrenologists to be, for the most part, 
ignorant of anatomy, and of the labors of philoso- 
phers, and resting with the same confidence and pre- 
sumption on their thirty or forty organs as some 
others do upon their thirty-nine articles of faith. I 
am not at all surprised, therefore, at the reception 
Phrenology has met with from the scientific world ; 
for it was easy to reject the whole where there was 
really so much error. Phrenologists were dogma- 
tizing and fortune-telling with strange incaution. 



24 MAX'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and disgusting people by their presumption and 
blundering, while the subject was yet in its infancy, 
and all were professors and few were students at the 
very commencement of the inquiry. But there are 
difficulties and imperfections and errors in all 
sciences ; and over-confidence, and hasty theorizing, 
and system-making : but when, as Bacon wisely 
says, men dogmatize and lay down the principles 
of a science in its infancy with a show of com- 
pleteness, it may add to the glory of the professor, 
but will not leave the science in a state of growth. 
Phrenology has been a glaring instance of the evil 
of making too great a show of exactness and 
method. 

I will next explain to you what has occurred to 
me in my investigation, and what appears to me to 
be the principle of the general arrangement and 
division, etc., of the faculties. In the brain is cast 
in stereotype, as it were, the whole nature and 
philosophy of man ; and in a language which exists 
for all nations and for all times. It is the most 
wondrous structure, and the most beautiful in 
arrangement, that men can contemplate. May we 
approach the subject with reverence, and with a 
due sense of its importance and of our own inabil- 
ity ! and be guarded that in seeking truth, we 
assume not something which is false ; always being 
regardless of the opinions of men, and however 
vehemently they may say "No," so long as Nature 
whispers " Yes." 



INQUIRY ABOUT THE STRUCTURE. 25 

V. 

INQUIRY ABOUT THE STRUCTURE. 

H. M. to H. G. A. 

We are coming to the pith of the matter now. 
When people speak of the brain as " the instrument 
of the mind," I want them to tell me whether they 
think the dog, and the bee, and the ape, have each 
a mind which puts the brain in operation : and if 
so, whence it came, and whither it goes. You 
remember Scott's dog, which somehow attacked or 
alarmed a certain baker ; and how this dog slunk 
into a corner whenever his master spoke of the 
adventure, whatever might be the tone of voice or 
4 3 artifice with which the story was introduced ; 
and how, when the upshot was told, — "and the 
baker was not hurt after all," — the dog came out 
of his corner, frisking and joyful, and barking 
merrily. Now, this creature evidently felt shame 
and fear, and consciousness of self, relief and joy. 
And, again, when the monkey puts the wig into 
the boiler, and hides the plum-pudding, and then 
gets out of reach of punishment, as soon as any 
one goes near the boiler, — here is an exercise of 
several faculties, besides the most prominent ones 
of imitation and consciousness of self. Will any 
one say that these creatures have a separate mind, 
which uses the brain as a manifesting instrument ? 
If so, what is the evidence? and how do we know 
3 



26 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT 

that these animals are not of a nature equal to man, 
but famished with a smaller apparatus of brain ? If 
not, why suppose man to be of an essentially dif- 
ferent make from them, while their powers are, as 
far as they can be traced, absolutely analogous ? 

In these instances, the point of most importance 
appears to me to be the consciousness of self indi- 
cated by the dog and the monkey. I am constantly 
told that this consciousness is an attribute of the 
human being alone ; whereas I cannot see how the 
jealousies, the vindictiveness, the moral fear, the 
love of approbation, and the forecast of brute 
animals, can be exercised without a sense of the 
Ego. We know but little of the powers and expe- 
rience of brutes, even as the dog knows little of 
the experience of the cat, or the bird of that of the 
frog : but what we do know indicates consciousness 
as clearly as sentience. 

As for how any faculties exist at all, we are so 
absolutely ignorant, that we may fairly pass over 
any objections to Thought and Feeling being results 
of brain, from the impossibility of explaining the 
How. When we know how any thing else is pro- 
duced, it will be time enough to require explana- 
tions of this. In the old ages of Geology, before 
there was animal existence, there were electric 
lights, and aroma from vegetation, and solemn music 
from winds sounding through vast cane brakes, and 
among clattering or swinging palm and plantain 
leaves : but there was then no sentience to grasp 
and appropriate these products. When the sentience 



INQUIRY ABOUT THE STRUCTURE. 27 

was provided, it probably only enjoyed. After 
more ages, consciousness followed upon the senti- 
ence j or, if consciousness came with the sentience, 
reflection followed, and the results of material 
action were naturally, but ignorantly, attributed to 
preternatural agency ; as you observe of the rain- 
bow. Is there more ground (in these days of our 
physiological ignorance) for our supposing mental 
results to be of a spiritual origin than there was for 
the first half dozen men to suppose lightning to be 
a spirit, and the harp-music of the pine forest the 
voice of a spirit, and, in short, all intangible matter 
and material effects to be manifestations of spirit ? 
I cannot see how we can be justified in falling into 
such assumptions, with so many ancient warnings, 
and such vast modern scientific discoveries before 
our eyes. 

Show me, therefore, how we are to set about the 
study of the structure and functions of the brain, 
and what we really know of them. I have seen 
for myself, by the actual examination of the brains 
of the dead, how great was the folly of slicing 
them through, instead of tracing out their convolu- 
tions and compartments j a folly even greater than 
that of slicing through the muscles, if the view 
was to ascertain their whole structure and use. I 
have a distinct idea of the appearance and general 
form of the human brain. I now look to you for 
an account of — not what one may find arrogantly 
mapped out in every manual of phrenology, — but 
what you conceive to be clearly established, what 



28 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

conjectured, and what merely hinted, up to the 
present time. I hope to obtain much more satis- 
faction from you than I have ever got from all the 
metaphysicians I have read. As you say, they have 
regarded only effects, and the relation of those effects 
to each other, while the effects themselves can 
hardly appear alike to any two observers : and that 
the true philosophy that we want is the relation of 
these effects to their causes : an investigation which 
can never be made while men take for granted that 
the real agent is, in each of us, an intangible Mind 
or Spirit, whose nature and qualities are not know- 
able. It is really wearisome to read theories by 
the score, all unsupported by any thing that can 
be called evidence, and descriptions and so-called 
analyses of faculties whose nature and origin are 
not even looked for, and whose management and 
control cannot therefore be provided for. You will 
teach me better. You will open the matter to me 
as if you were going to treat of the eye, — show- 
ing me the structure of the ball and the nerve, and 
what share of the brain it appropriates ; and then 
how the laws of optics bear upon it ; and then, the 
mental facts of vision, — with some curious secrets 
that I know you hold thereupon. Now then, — 
what is our brain ? 

Yes, indeed, we feel reverently in regard to this 
research. The true ground of awe is in finding 
ourselves what we are ; not in dreams of how we 
came to be what we are. I suppose all we know 
is, that every thing occurs and proceeds by immu- 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 29 

table laws ; and the more this fact strengthens our 
reliance, the more it must enhance our reverence. 
We are what we are, however we came to be : and 
what we are is too great for our present selves to 
know. 



VI. 

EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 

H. G. A. to H. M. 

" What is the brain ? " 

The brain is the organ from whose action arises 
all that class of phenomena which we term Mind : 
in which I include all our sensations, perceptions, 
emotions, judgments and intuitions ; consciousness, 
will, and certain forces which tend to regulate, stim- 
ulate and control the other functions of the body. 
This, you perceive, is giving to the brain a larger 
sphere of action than is assigned to it in the works 
on phrenology. I differ also from phrenologists in 
this ; that I consider consciousness, will, pleasing 
or painful sensations, &c, to be distinct faculties, 
and the functions of special organs. You know 
the brain ; I need therefore only remind you that 
there are, in fact, two brains : the cerebrum occu- 
pying the larger portion of the skull, and the cere- 
bellum in a separate compartment, beneath the 
posterior lobe of the cerebrum, occupying the space 
3* 



30 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

behind the ears. It has happened to me to be able 
to demonstrate that this lesser brain is not what 
Gall supposed it to be ; that is, the organ of the 
amative propensity : but the organ of that class of 
powers which might perhaps, for distinction's sake, 
be termed the physico-functional powers ; or those 
powers having a more immediate relation to the 
bodily conditions — the muscular power, and other 
purely bodily relations, secretions, &c. But, what- 
ever importance I may attach to the knowledge 
of the functions of this and of some other parts, I 
trust you will not consider it presumption in me, 
or that I wish in any way to force these views 
upon others, or to take from the value of their 
labors. What I have done I attribute to the light 
thrown upon the subject by the new means I have 
discovered and made use of, rather than to any 
superior ability or acuteness in myself. I am what 
I am ; a creature of necessity ; I claim neither 
merit nor demerit. I wish only to interest others 
in this inquiry, that they may prove, or, if they 
can, disprove, what I announce. The proofs are 
open to all ; the means in every one's hands ; and 
it is much better to test novel matters by experi- 
ment and observation, than to try to reason away 
alleged truths, in ignorance of what nature may 
have to say upon the question. 

You know that most of the parts of man are 
double ; that he is very nearly a double being ; and 
that the cerebrum is divided into halves, with cor- 
responding organs on each half. It is a fact, also, 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 31 

that some organs are often more developed on one 
side than on the other, and that generally only one 
side is in action at a time. This is one reason for 
the variations which occur in the same character. 
It seems certain that mind (or the conditions essen- 
tial to mind) is evolved from the gray vesicular 
matter which forms the external layer over the 
convolutions, and exists in certain other parts where 
a supply of power may be requisite. There is no 
j erceptible separation, or distinction in the con- 
dition, of the organs ; nor, considering the nature 
of mind, working together, or evolving results in 
combinations, could we in reason expect that such 
would be the case ; but there may, nevertheless, be 
distinctions, — material distinctions, as real as those 
of colors, which yet are blended together in the 
spectrum. You know that there is a division be- 
tween the halves of the cerebrum to a certain 
depth ; and that there are convolutions on the sides 
of these dividing surfaces, and beneath those which 
appear on the surface ; and that under these, again, 
is the arch of nerve fibre joining the halves ; be- 
neath which, again, are other parts which unite the 
different portions — not very unlike the reservoirs, 
machinery, and cross lines at a great railway ter- 
minus, where all seems confusion to any but an 
engineer, but where the whole is acting with the 
nicest precision and adaptation. You know, also, 
that there are certain convolutions on the under sur- 
face of the cerebrum, particularly of the posterior 
lobe, immediately over the cerebellum, and of the 



32 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

anterior lobe, lying on the plate of bone, which 
forms a covering over the eyes. In the deep fis- 
sure called the Silvian fissure, on the side, there 
are also convolutions which do not manifest them- 
selves on the surface. It is very evident, then, that 
the functions of all these convolutions are not to 
be ascertained from observations made on the ex- 
posed developments of the surface, which give the 
internal shape to the skull, and may be observed 
on during life. The cerebellum is sufficiently ex- 
posed at the surface to allow observations of meas- 
urement to be made during life to a certain extent j 
and had observations been made after Gall's method, 
or by Gall with a freer suggestive faculty, the whole 
cerebellum would never have been appropriated to 
the single function of manifesting amative feeling. 
But you see what matter there is before us, and 
how impossible it is for me, even if desirable, to 
go into any full particulars. 

The organs of the cerebellum are double, though 
the brain is not divided in the centre as the cere- 
brum is. There are convolutions of a smaller and 
somewhat different character from those of the 
cerebrum ; and these convolutions are separated 
into several masses ; and there is also a separation 
between the upper and the under half of the con- 
voluted surface of the cerebellum. We could hardly 
suppose such separations to exist were the whole 
mass of this lesser brain the organ of one faculty ; 
and, in consequence, different physiologists have 
suggested what they supposed might be the func- 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 33 

tion, but without agreeing, or being able to confirm 
their theories, or to arrive at what appears now to 
be the fact. You must remember that the two 
brains are united by cords of nervous matter, and 
that both brains communicate down the spinal 
cord, and so to the whole nervous system. You 
know what Sir Charles Bell discovered of each 
nerve having its special function ; that is. that, no 
nerve has two functions; that there were distinct 
nerves, for instance, for motion and sensation ; and 
how, being ignorant of all that Gall had done, he 
opposed phrenology ; which science does but extend 
the principle of his own discoveries into the brain ; 
its principle being, that each faculty of the mind 
is the function of a special portion or organ of the 
great nervous centre. 

Anatomists had toiled in vain to make out the 
uses of the brain : and then, in the study of Com- 
parative Anatomy, there were obvious difficulties 
in the way. Such comparisons could only be un- 
derstood and found available in an advanced stage 
of our knowledge, when we had arrived at cer- 
tain established principles to guide us, and certain 
ascertained points to start from ; except merely for 
observation on general progressive development in 
relation to functional display. Sir Charles Bell 
thought the only way was to ascertain the func- 
tions of the nerves, and trace them to their origin 
in the brain ; and thus infer the office of the parts 
of the brain : and this had some show of reason 
in it. But alas ! what appears most reasonable 



34 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

beforehand is not always found to be either avail- 
able or true, while that which is supposed to be 
most unreasonable or even impossible, often turns 
out to be the more appropriate, simple, and useful 
truth. But — not to detain you — it will be suffi- 
cient to say that Sir Charles Bell's method failed 
altogether ; and he retreated from the citadel, once 
more to devote himself to the outworks ; and, with 
the exception of some confused results, relating to 
motion and common sensation, obtained by irrita- 
tions and vivisection, the physiology of the brain 
remained at a stand-still, while metaphysics, rising 
upon this ignorance, were, and still are, perplexing 
the world with endless and contradictory theories ; 
and many of those who have accepted phrenology 
as a fact have endeavored to explain away its sim- 
ple reading, to favor some preconceived opinion. 
Science was advancing in the departments of 
Chemistry, Geology, Electricity, and Magnetism ; 
and with good and useful results ; while Physiol- 
ogy and Mental Philosophy stood still. That 
which was united in nature was separated by 
human reason ; and how could either advance ? 
But we find in Mesmerism, which is, as it were, 
the mind of phrenology, renewed light and hope, 
and another means of investigation ; and apparently 
the only one adapted to the requirements of the 
case. Under Mesmerism, you know, we are ena- 
bled to observe at leisure all those abnormal states 
which in their spontaneous conditions have aston- 
ished and perplexed, and, I might add, have de- 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 35 

luded or guided the world in all ages. However, 
the nature of Mesmerism, and the relations of its 
effects to these phenomena, are not to our present 
purpose. 

I observed that under the influence of Mesmer- 
ism some patients would spontaneously place their 
hand; or rather the ends of the fingers, on the part 
of the brain in action ; and these were persons 
wholly ignorant of phrenology. In some cases, 
the hand would pass very rapidly from part to part, 
as the organs became excited. If the habit of 
action was encouraged, they would follow every 
combination with precision : and if one hand would 
not do, they would use both, to cover distant parts 
in action at the same time. I was delighted with 
these effects ; but did not consider them very 
extraordinary, because I had been accustomed to 
observe the same phenomena in a lesser degree, in 
the ordinary or normal condition. I know some 
who, on any excitement of their Love of Approba- 
tion, will rub their hand over the organ immedi- 
ately. Others I have observed when irritated pass 
the hand over Destructiveness. I have observed 
others hold their hand over the region of the 
attachments, as they gazed on the object of their 
affection. I have watched the poet inspired to 
write, with the fingers pressing on the region of 
Ideality ; and those listening to music leaning upon 
the elbow, with the finger pressing on the organ 
of Music ; and I catch myself performing these; 
actions, continually, as if I were a puppet moved 



36 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

by strings. You will observe, besides, how the 
head follows the excited organ. The proud man 
throws his head back : the firm man carries his 
head erect : vanity draws the head on one side, 
with the hat on the opposite side : the intellect 
presses the head forward : the affections throw it 
back upon the shoulders : and so with the rest. 

You see what my aim is ; — not to magnify 
plain things into marvels ,* but to reduce marvels 
into plain things. There should be no marvels 
in philosophy. To a philosopher, all things are 
equally wonderful. It is simply the rareness, or 
our ignorance, that makes the difference. Now, all 
these actions of the natural language will occur 
without our being conscious of any action or sensa- 
tion whatever in the part. It is clear, therefore, 
that there must be some original directing force or 
sentience, independent of consciousness or will. 
But I found that some of these sleepers were con- 
scious of the action going on in the brain; and that 
when any feeling or sense was in existence, they 
could tell you the part of the brain that was in 
action. It was not pain ; nor exactly pulsation ; 
but a clear and peculiar sensation in the part in 
action, Here I found a second important channel 
of investigation under Mesmerism. But still, this 
was not a new phenomenon to me : for in certain 
conditions of ill health, I had been distinctly con- 
scious of similar sensations. 

There is another more positive condition to be 
remarked, when, after over-excitement or confused 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 37 

action, &c, absolute pain is experienced ; in the 
same way that it occurs from similar causes in 
other parts of the body. In pain, Nature, as it 
were, speaks out her wants, to arrest our attention ; 
— to draw force to the part ; — to instruct the phy- 
sician. But the physician has not yet learned the 
language of pain ; so that, in this respect, for the 
most part Nature cries out in vain. How little is 
studied the nature of pains, and their sympathetic 
connections, and their relations especially to the 
head ! A headache is a headache ; and little regard 
is paid to the parts affected. There is hardly one 
of Gall's organs, the proof of which has not been 
as clear to me from the notice of pains in the parts 
affected, as from observing the external develop- 
ment. There is hardly one organ that I have not 
at some time observed to pain me when in unusual 
action ; occurring mostly when I was in an unusu- 
ally sensitive condition : and there has been a time 
when I have kept myself unwell for days, solely 
to observe these phenomena. But we have other 
means now ; and this is not necessary. 

Here I must state another remarkable circum- 
stance. You know that some mesmerized persons 
are able to describe the condition of others by 
sympathetic sensations, occurring in themselves. 
They sometimes go beyond this : but this is one 
stage. , This is a sympathetic condition which I 
know to exist in some persons in their natural 
state ; and it often occurs to those who mesmerize. 
While mesmerizing, they will feel pain in the part 
4 



38 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

affected in the patient j and, in some instances, 
imbibe the disease. I have seldom experienced 
these pains when mesmerizing : but I have felt, 
when very sensitive from mesmerizing much, im- 
mediately on coming into the presence of my 
patients where they were in pain at the time, and 
what was their condition of health. I have some- 
times doubted my correctness when I felt the pains 
to have changed in a way that I could not suppose 
was the case : but on inquiry, I always found that 
the mesmerometer was right. 

I must relate another condition which was more 
peculiar to myself. In passing my hand over a 
patient without touching, or knowing where he 
had pain, I could feel the pain in my hand, as dis- 
tinctly as the patient felt it in the part affected. I 
felt the sensations as distinctly as I feel heat in 
passing my hand over a candle : and I could tell 
the character and precise extent of the pain. I 
felt in my hand what the patient felt in the ailing 
part. The hand would, as it were, absorb the 
pain ; and I was aware of the instant it was re- 
moved from the sufferer. My hand removed other 
conditions of disease in the same way. The ac- 
count published of my curing Miss 's eye was 

an instance of this. My hand was always soothing 
and healing, even to the most inflamed part, when 
the hands of others irritated and did harm. Be- 
yond this, I could instantly tell when the patient 
passed into sleep, with my eyes shut ; simply from 
the sensation I experienced in my hand : and the 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 39 

same with each distinct change of condition dur- 
ing the sleep. Thus we may perceive that in all 
changes, certain forces or indications are evolved. 
And you see what admirable proofs we have of 
the action of one living body upon another. You 
may suppose what I thought of the objection that 
the effects of mesmerism were only imagination in 
the patient, while I was in possession of this, test, 
and was easing people of their pains, and even 
putting them into the mesmeric sleep, for the first 
time, and wholly without their knowledge. 

Another mode of inquiry with sleepers is to 
cause them, on any striking mental effects having 
occurred to them in dreams or otherwise, to point 
out to you, one after the other, the parts of the 
brain which have been affected, or in which pain 
has occurred, in relation to the passion or feeling 
of the time ; and also in regard to the effects of 
mind upon the body, and of the body on the mind 
and brain. The extraordinary memory and sense 
of these influences and relations with some sleepers 
are very remarkable, and would hardly be credited 
by those who have not observed or investigated 
them. I could relate to you numerous striking 
instances of this. Beyond all this, you know how 
I found that I could excite into action any portion 
of the brain, or arrest any portion already in action, 
by touching the part, and in some instances by 
only pointing to it ; and by other means : so that 
in numerous instances, I could play upon the head, 
and produce what actions I pleased, just as dis- 



40 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

tinctly as you play upon the keys of the piano. 
The clearness of the response of course depended 
on the condition of the patient. In some cases, 
only a few parts are susceptible : in others, the 
whole brain : or the brain is susceptible during one 
condition of the sleep and not another, or at one 
time and not at another. In some cases patients 
are subject to the action of metals and other sub- 
stances • and one substance will destroy the effect 
of another, or unite and cause a third result. 

In some cases, the mere pressure of inanimate 
substances will excite the action of the part ; or 
the mere pressure of where the head is resting. 
The different parts of the brain can be thus ex- 
cited, just as we excite any other portion of the 
nervous system : — a limb, or one finger, or two 
fingers at a time ; or a nerve of the face, so as to 
cause a twitching or other action of the part. The 
organs of the cerebellum are generally more sus- 
ceptible than those of the cerebrum : but there are 
cases where the result is confused, or the excite- 
ment brings in a combination in its habit of action 
with other parts. In such cases, you can hardly 
draw any positive conclusions, any more than from 
the confused results of Majendie's vivisections. In 
a few instances, some parts being more suscep- 
tible than others, touching in the neighborhood of 
those parts will call them into action, and not the 
less susceptible part which is actually touched. 
This is oftener the case with the organs of the 
cerebellum than with those of the cerebrum. But 



EARLY DAYS OF PHRENOLOGY. 41 

these are not cases on which I rely ; and they 
are unfit for experiment. Failures in such cases 
are not to be considered as affording any objection 
to the clear and decided results from fit subjects, 
any more than a pain in the special organ after 
fatigue or distraction, — of music, for instance, — 
is to be negatived because some men have confused 
headache from a similar cause ; they being in a 
different condition : or the single ache of one finger 
is to be denied, because in some instances the whole 
hand, and in others the whole arm, becomes influ- 
enced more or less on touching any part. Every 
case must be taken on its own merits, and the cause 
of failure or confusion ascertained. Thus, failures 
and modified results often become the clearest proof 
of the truth already established from positive and 
clear evidences. I have excited the separate organs 
of people in a natural sleep ; even of very young 
children j and by the acting on the muscular power, 
have caused them to rise up and throw their arms 
about; without waking. 

Now, in this last class of experiments, what a 
startling and undeniable proof have we of the truth 
of phrenology, as well as of mesmerism ! Those 
ill disposed towards the subject might dispute the 
size of organs on the skull, or talk of coincidences, 
&c, but we have here as clear a result from the 
action of the brain, and from each part of the brain, 
as in touching the piano, or in the rubbing of a 
lucifer match, or by adjusting a voltaic pile. And 
can any experiment in nature be so interesting, or 
4* 



42 MAWS NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

more important ? In the next letter, I can, I think, 
complete this part of the subject, and tell you all 
I presume you wish to hear from me about the 
brain and its functions. 



VII. 

INQUIRY FOR NEW DISCOVERIES. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

This last letter of yours is extremely interesting. 
Let me say, in the first place, that there is no danger 
of my thinking that you exaggerate the value of 
the discoveries you have made as to the functions 
of some portions of the brain. I do not see how it 
is possible to overrate them, — supposing them 
proved, of which I have no doubt. 

Let. us just look at the course of the affair. — 
First, I suppose, all movement, all operation of one 
thing upon another, was concluded, before science 
existed, to imply spirit. The winds, the waters, the 
waving and sprouting trees, the flickering fire, were 
all animated by spirits; and so were the movements 
of man, — the rolling eye and jerking limbs of the 
new-born infant, as well as the far-reaching thought 
of the philosopher. How very lately were still- 
born children supposed to be damned because they 
had not been baptized ! Then, almost every organ 
seems to have been honored and glorified before the 



INQUIRY FOR NEW DISCOVERIES. 43 

brain; and especially the heart. How long will 
the word Heart stand in our parlance for soul, 
affections, sensibility, conscience ? Then, by slow- 
degrees, the brain seems to have risen into a sort of 
vague consideration as an indispensable, noble, but 
most mysterious part of our frame. All along, while 
any attention at all was paid to the brain, there 
seems to have been some kind of general impres- 
sion that its size and mode of development indicated 
character. We find a low forehead, a small head, 
a thick skull, thought ill of; philosophers repre- 
sented with large foreheads, and gladiators with a 
thick base to the skull : and, since Gall's time, we 
have met with a more and more extended admission 
that the head appears to have three regions, — the 
intellectual, moral, and physical departments. Then 
came Sir Charles Bell's grand discovery about the 
nerves ; his detection of the different structure and 
function of the motory and sensory nerves : — a 
mighty discovery in itself, but yet greater for its 
suggestive value. Here is one kind of nerve for 
sensation, by which the cataleptic patient may feel 
while wholly unable to move ; and another kind 
for motion, by which a patient may be frightfully 
convulsed without feeling any thing. A friend of 
mine, who told me all about it, was in the first of 
these states, — her sentience acute while wholly 
incapable of motion ; and she had a somewhat 
narrow escape from being buried alive. The most 
curious thing is that she concluded herself to be 
dead. She was in a state of exhaustion after severe 



44 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

illness. A peculiar sensation ran through her. 
Her mother stooped over her bed, and then, as the 
patient heard, told the sister, who was by the fire, 
that all was over. While hearing their grief, and 
feeling their warm tears on her face, the patient 
could not open eyes or mouth, or stir a finger j and 
she concluded this to be death. It did occur to her 
to wonder how long this would last, — how many 
ages she should lie thus in the grave ; but she does 
not remember feeling any painful alarm about this. 
Yet, when, in the afternoon, her mother began 
swathing her in the sheet, from the feet upwards, 
she extremely disliked the idea of her head being 
thus muffled up ; and, as the sheet came higher and 
higher, she made a desperate effort, and opened her 
eyes, — sending her mother back far from the bed, 
with a start of astonishment. She was still so full 
of the idea which had moved her, that she strug- 
gled on till she said " Don't smother me ; " though 
by that time the entreaty had become unnecessary. 
Now, — the discovery being made that one set of 
nerves relates to sensation and another to motion, 
what so probable as that one portion of the brain is 
appropriate to sensation, and another to motion ? 
You have detected these portions, have you not ? 
Tell me as much as you can about it, before going 
on to report of the functions of the cerebrum. 

I suppose you have two methods of ascertaining 
and testing the portions of the brain appropriated to 
motion and sensation; — by inquiring of persons in 
the mesmeric sleep, where they feel this or that 



INQUIRY FOR NEW DISCOVERIES. 45 

sensation, and getting them to point out the place ; 
and then, by exciting involuntary movement, and 
even sensation, in other patients, by acting upon 
the parts to which you have been directed. If you 
ever succeeded by this method, — if you thereby 
render a patient insensible to the pain of losing a 
limb, for instance ; or cause him to feel pleasure or 
pain in the absence of the outward condition ; or 
set in motion particular limbs or muscles at your 
own silent pleasure, — I do not see how any num- 
ber of failures can invalidate your discovery. Fail- 
ures are only the supervention of other conditions 
than those you are seeking : and they cannot inval- 
idate their antecedents. 

I can never doubt the wonderful efficacy of the 
method, after what I have witnessed. Before I had 
ever turned my attention to it, or had heard any 
thing of your researches, I was witness to a curious 
contention between a mesmerizing friend of mine 
and her patient ; — an ignorant servant-girl, under 
twenty years of age. The lady desired the girl to 
mimic a guest : she thought she ought not. Her 
mesmerizer appealed to one faculty after another, — 
to her power of imitation, of obedience, of affec- 
tion, &c, and the girl raised her hands, and touched, 
in the course of her response, Conscience, Firm- 
ness, and, finally, Combativeness. The raising, 
first of one hand, then of the other, the stretching 
and quick movement of both to cover the desired 
portions, in the midst of her animated sleep, were 
a singular sight. 



46 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

I know something, too, of the peculiar sensation 
you speak of, when portions of the brain are set 
strongly in action, by mesmeric influence. The 
sensation is markedly local, and extremely peculiar ; 
a sort of creeping and lightening or melting — 
rather agreeable than otherwise, though the force 
of the faculty is, at the time, too great for comfort. 
I have sometimes thought it not wholly unlike the 
sensation I have been aware of every time, for weeks 
together, that my mesmeric patients have " slipped 
over " into the sleep. When three or four have 
been in my room at one time, and I have put one 
after another to sleep, I have found myself able to 
detect, by a peculiar sensation throughout my whole 
frame, the precise instant when the sleep took 
possession of them, though their eyes might have 
been so fast closed before, that it would require 
deep observation and long experience to assign the 
moment without such sympathy. As for detecting 
the seat of pain in a patient who does not tell of it, 
— I do it simply by feeling pain in the ringers, and, 
if I persevere, in the wrist, elbow, and shoulder, 
successively ; and, more frequently still, by the 
swelling of the hand. More than once, a ring on 
my finger has been almost hidden by the swelling 
which takes place in a few minutes, when I mes- 
merize a person under severe pain. But there is, in 
this case, no sensation in me at all resembling that 
of the action of my brain, under the hand of my 
mesmerizer, or that which indicates the moment 
when a patient of mine passes into the sleep. 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. 47 

By the way, can you tell me how it is, that the 
mesmerizer feels the patient's sympathetic pain, 
rather than the disease which causes it ? For 
instance, when liver disorder causes pain in the 
shoulder, why does the hand of the mesmerizer 
swell in passing over the shoulder, and not the 
liver ? Or does it in both ? 

But I must remember how much you have to 
tell me in your next. You promise to go on about 
the brain and its functions : and I know there is 
much to be said yet under this great division of our 
survey. 



VIII. 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. ORGANIC AR- 
RANGEMENT OF THE BRAIN. 

H. G. A. to H. M. 

Thank you for your confirmations of so many 
points of interest. 

It seems to me, that it is only by the study of 
our peculiarities and abnormal conditions that we 
shall gain light whereby to comprehend the ordi- 
nary and normal operations of our nature : and this 
knowledge, again, will enable us, at once, to per- 
ceive the cause and nature of every deviation from 
the true form. But knowledge has a progressive 
growth and natural course ; and it is not in the 



48 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

power of the most suggestive mind to make any 
sudden leap. The discovery of a new instrument, 
or of a general law, alone enables us to make a 
stride in advance. The telescope, the power of 
which was not credited at first, gives us an extended 
range of observation ; the microscope enables us to 
observe the more secret workings and minute struc- 
ture of parts : by the electric telegraph we commu- 
nicate in London with our friends in Edinburgh : by 
the stethoscope we detect the condition of internal 
portions of the body. The laws of light and grav- 
itation extend over the universe, and explain whole 
classes of phenomena : the law of physiology, that 
each function has a special organ, and the exten- 
sion of this law to the brain, explain the differences 
and variations in the condition of man, and his 
relations towards other animals. Gall's discoveries 
were made by observing striking instances of par- 
ticular development ; and we all of us have some 
peculiarities of development or constitution, if we 
will but closely observe them. I am glad to learn 
any thing you will tell me about your own unusual 
condition. I never experienced any swelling of the 
hand, as you and some others have, from relieving 
pain, or other conditions : but my hand has, in 
many instances, remained strangely hot and in pain 
the whole day afterwards. In such cases, however, 
there was a general irritability or inflammatory con- 
dition, as well as pain, in the patient. Simple ner- 
vous pains seem to hang loosely upon the nerves, 
and pass away quickly under mesmerism ; but when 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. 49 

they have roots in some diseased condition, they 
take more hold, and protract the process of cure. 
I have found a diseased part and pain relieved more 
readily from the sympathetic points than from the 
part itself : — the sympathetic part seems to be the 
natural channel by which the disease diffuses, and 
so relieves itself. The question of sympathetic 
conditions in the same body is a question of great 
interest. It is a kind of mesmerism or relieving 
of one part of the body by another. We put" our 
hand to an aching part as instinctively as a dog 
licks a sore. It is an extremely interesting question 
how one disease may be made to cure another, as 
light destroys light : to see also how one person is 
cured by another taking the disease. I know mes- 
merizing doctors to have given diseases that they 
have brought from other houses to those whom 
they have mesmerized ; and thus it may be a 
question if medical men are proper persons to 
mesmerize. I think they cannot be too careful. 
The facts of contagion and infection one would 
suppose would have predisposed medical men to 
attend to mesmerism, and to appreciate the impor- 
tance of the inquiry. 

In my last letter, I referred to several methods 
which, in my opinion, are undeniable means for 
ascertaining the functions of the brain. Just as 
the different senses are essential to aid and confirm 
us in our judgments of the phenomena of external 
nature, so likewise do we require various instru- 
ments or means to aid and .confirm us in our inves- 
5 



50 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

tigations into the nature of the brain and nervous 
system. I have no fancy to concoct or uphold a 
system, but have desired to seek out and bring to 
light all objections, and let them lie side by side 
with the facts, that an impartial judgment may be 
formed. But the means having been once ascer- 
tained, as Bacon says, " it remains only that men 
have perseverance, united with great severity of 
judgment ; that they change their instruments ; 
that they increase the amount of evidence ; that 
they subject to experiment each phenomenon, and 
frequently, and in a variety of ways." Sir Charles 
Bell made his discoveries by stimulating the nerves 
separately ; under mesmerism, we may stimulate 
or repress the action of separate parts of the brain, 
and then experiment on the function after a similar 
method, and one which is adapted to the condition. 
But, from what I have said, you will understand 
that we still require one other instrument, which, 
like the microscope and telescope, shall enable us 
to penetrate and observe parts and phenomena to 
which our ordinary faculties will not reach. That 
instrument is found in the sensitive and more con- 
centrated or exalted condition of the observing 
powers under mesmerism. The existence of such 
a condition appears a great wonder to superficial 
minds, which, perhaps, when familiar with the 
fact, find no interest in it, and are insensible to the 
profoundest truth, showing how easily a state of 
wonder may pass into that of indifference. To the 
philosopher, the spirit of prophecy, the growth of 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. 51 

a blade of grass, and the ordinary perception of any 
object, are all equally wonderful, and deeply mys- 
terious ; mysterious beyond our faculty of concep- 
tion, and out of the very nature of knowledge. 

That such exalted conditions do exist, is now so 
clear a matter of history and daily occurrence, that 
no one need trouble himself to convince those who 
persist in ignorance, and doubt of what is so noto- 
rious. None know better than yourself how these 
clairvoyant powers have been manifested in a vari- 
ety of forms, in all periods of history, and with all 
nations. We know that future events are foreseen 
in dreams and in trances ; sometimes under the 
influence of mesmerism, and by some apparently 
in the ordinary condition of their lives. We know 
that some can see distant objects without the use 
of the eye ; and that others can see, so to speak, 
through opaque objects, reading what is written 
in a closed book, and even the thoughts which are 
passing in the mind of another. We know that 
many under mesmerism can describe any diseased 
condition in themselves and in others within the 
sphere of their vision ; that they have an instinct 
of remedies, — when a crisis will occur, and the 
cure will be effected. They do not go by any 
system, but by an instinct, so to term it, of the 
peculiar temperament and wants of each particular 
case. There are some who have detected the 
properties of herbs and of other substances, and 
can observe the structure, condition, action and 
uses of parts of the animal frame. Whatever 



52 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

doubt any one may have as to the truth of any of 
these particulars, the general fact has now been so 
clearly exhibited in almost every portion of the civ- 
ilized and uncivilized world, that, without regard 
to my own experience, I presume I may say that, 
in a general way, the fact is established. With 
such a host of notorious instances on record, it is 
difficult to conceive that any enlightened person 
would dispute it : but there are persons even in 
this great metropolis who talk on this subject as 
if they had been born, bred, and dwelling in an 
obscure country village, subject to its arrogant 
conceits and contracted sight. 

It has been objected by some physiologists, that 
if these facts be true, it remains to be accounted 
for that discoveries in physiology have not been 
made before. The answer is, that qualified men 
have neglected the subject. The microscope might 
have existed long enough without any discoveries 
having been made by it, if it were used only for 
amusement and to excite wonder ; to magnify 
flies' wings, or to watch the grotesque movements 
of insects in a drop of water. It is a matter 
requiring the greatest perseverance and carefulness, 
and good cases are rare ; the state depending, 1 
think, much on the condition of the mesmerizer, 
and the direction of his mind. I am, of course, 
alluding now to the Intuitive powers ; not to the 
cases where the organs are excited by touch. How 
deeply Lord Bacon seems to have been impressed 
with the importance of the phenomena of mesmer- 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. 53 

ism ! The effect of one living body upon another 
at a distance, he considered " one of the highest 
secrets in nature." He considered it in relation 
to the causes and the cure of disease. This has 
been pronounced ignorance and weakness in Bacon. 
Well might he bequeath his speculations to future 
ages ! I wonder whether Macaulay was aware, or 
thought of this, when, in his essay on Bacon's phi- 
losophy, he said that Induction might lead to the 
belief in Mesmerism, which he, for want of the 
spirit of an inductive philosophy, calls nonsense. 
Bacon even speaks of clairvoyance under his term 
"Natural Divinations,"* as one means of acquiring 
obscure knowledge, and of anticipating events. 
What we have to attend to chiefly in this matter 
is to be aware of cases of delusive dreaming, and 
of false prophecy ; to receive, even in the best 
cases, what we accept as suggestion, to be tested 
in all possible ways ; and lastly, to reason only in 
relation to what is known. We must be on our 
guard against hasty assent, and generalization from 
a few instances, and incomplete experiments ; as 
well as against (what is common in novel matters) 
being oppressed by difficulties, without waiting to 
see through and pass them. We must restrain 
enthusiasm by caution, and doubt by wisdom. We 
shall win Nature only by waiting upon her, and 
conquer her by submission, rejoicing in every new 
light without fear or prejudice, remembering that 



* See Appendix A. 

5* 



54 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the progress and innovations of knowledge must 
always be good. This should be a faith with 
us. But we shall not gain knowledge by sending 
our patients rambling amidst visions of "another 
world " in the steeps of Swedenborg and others, 
but rather by bending the power to gain knowledge 
of ourselves and of what is about us, and useful to 
us in this life and sphere of being that we have to 
do with. When somnambulists think they see 
into another world, a world of spirits, it may be 
clearly proved to be all delusive dreaming ; and yet 
on such declarations do enthusiasts build up a faith 
and religion, and are proud of what they call spirit- 
uality. How the matter tempts me to wander ! 
But you see how, from fancying the properties of 
things to have an individual existence, and calling 
this Spirit (meaning an existence out of matter, 
and the ruler of matter), and the fancy recurring 
in the dream, floating impressions are supposed to 
be realities. Such tricks has strong Imagination ! 

But where there are shadows, there is substance. 
Let us see what it is. It has clearly appeared that 
nothing is gained by waiting upon the revelations 
of somnambulists. They must be used as instru- 
ments. They must be directed to physiological 
inquiry, and to such matters as are found to be 
within the sphere of their particular powers. Each 
case must be tested, and stand on its own ground. 
It must be ascertained whether they can recognize 
what is clear-seeing, in distinction from what is but 
vision or dreaming, or impression from without : 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. o5 

and in the most unexceptionable cases, still the 
matter must be confirmed, as I have said before, 
and tested by every available means. I do not 
think I am a very credulous man ; and I say that 
the facts I am about to state are as fully proved 
as facts can be. I am always, thankful, however, 
to have any reasonable objections advanced. 

I will relate to you the nature of one case as an 
example, and as the one from which I have gained 
the most. This was a lady of fifty years of age ; 
the mother of a large family, in a weakly state of 
health. She had lately become partially deaf; 
which was the cause of my first mesmerizing her. 
She was not learned ; but of a most unaffected and 
charming nature. I speak not from my feelings, 
nor praise her because she was my patient, and so 
clever a somnambule, (which is too often done,) 
but only relate what is the universal impression 
among those who knew her. She knew nothing 
whatever of physiological subjects. She is since 
dead. She manifested from time to time clear 
flashes of clairvoyant power in various ways. Her 
constitution was breaking up ; and in the end, this 
power turned to mere delusive dreaming ; which 
is common in such instances : but in the mean time, 
I had occupied her with the brain, finding that 
character of sight to be her forte. I could excite 
any part of her head, and under any combination : 
as I found that she could recognize the size and 
character of each organ when in action. She 
could explain the nature of each faculty, and its 



56 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

precise situation, and relation to other parts. She 
had the power of bringing into action any portion 
of the brain at will, whether it were among the 
outer or inner convolutions ; and when there was 
any indistinctness or difficulty, she would say so, 
and would declare when she was tired, and could 
no more see with accuracy. She could thus see 
whether any sentiment were a simple power, or the 
result of a combination ; and of what combination. 
She could see the form and structure of the brain. 
She never echoed my thoughts j but pointed out 
what was wholly new to me ; and both in regard 
to the functions of the organ, and the form of the 
brain, there were the same difficulties and the same 
facilities of perception, whether it related to what 
I already knew or to what I was ignorant of. The 
objection that such instances are merely cases of 
excitement of the power of thought-reading was 
wholly out of the question. There was not the 
slightest approach to it. She would reply to me 
by fact after fact, and reason upon reason, which 
proved to be correct ; but not in the least what I 
anticipated at the time. She always replied to 
what she supposed the question referred to, and 
never to my thought. 

It is singular that I have never produced a case 
of thought-reading, though I have mesmerized 
patients of others whom I could clearly influence 
to think or act by my will, or by what Bacon calls 
the force of imagination acting upon another body. 
The powers of somnambules may often be devel- 



METHODS OF NEW DISCOVERY. 57 

oped, and directed to what one wants them to do ; 
but none have ever responded to my thoughts : and 
often, when they do so respond, one may prevent 
it, just as you may prevent them from hearing ; 
perhaps, simply by desiring them to be deaf ; when 
a pistol fired at their ear will produce no effect. 
We must be patient to learn in this matter, and 
not impatient to anticipate and dictate what Nature 
should be. 

To return to the lady. I could never catch her 
tripping, or in error on any occasion ; and all that 
occurred was taken down at the time, and in the 
end compared. I cannot go into details, and shall 
only say that I repeated the experiment from time 
to time, in every diversified way that I could de- 
vise, and questioned her for explanations on every 
head, and then sought to test her assertions by the 
other means I have described, and by comparison 
with others having a similar faculty with herself. 
So much as appears to be established, by the various 
means I have sought, I will relate. It is not, 1 
think, requiring much of the credulity even of those 
who are not acquainted with the higher phenomena 
of mesmerism as matter of fact, to suppose that 
when the ordinary and outward action of the senses 
is cut off, and when the body is brought into a 
peculiar abnormal condition, the inner part of the 
brain might partake of the condition not required 
by the paralyzed senses. The same relations, in 
fact, would take an inward direction, and the brain 
itself become, as it were, an organ of sense, with 



58 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT, 

a concentrated power ; the attention would be 
capable of exciting and fixing on parts, and the 
action of these parts, just as in the ordinary con- 
dition it could excite to action one limb or one 
finger, and take cognizance of the sensations, or 
other conditions going on in such part or parts. I 
am not now insisting on this being the true expla- 
nation of the phenomena ; but such a view or pos- 
sible form of the fact is sufficient to help us through 
our wonderment at the novelty. There is a com- 
pensating power in nature towards the completion 
of individual growths. A branch of an apple-tree 
broken nearly off will flower and bear more abun- 
dantly : — so do the higher functions and fruits of 
the brain, by fasting and partial paralyzing, appear 
to be sustained in fuller action : roots will appear 
from the stems of trees : even leaves will take root : 
flower-buds may be changed into leaf-buds : sta- 
mens take the form of leaves in double flowers ; 
and the lost leader of a young pine-tree is supplied 
by one of the side branches turning upwards : the 
prevailing winds on one side of a tree will cause 
the roots to take firmer hold of the ground on the 
side in the opposite direction to the wind. Shall 
we be surprised then, in the complicated structure 
of Man, to find, under unusual conditions, certain 
changes, — compensations and intuitive powers 
evolved in an abnormal state, and in the stress of 
disease ? Shall we be astonished that a man should 
have intuitive insight into his wants, as an animal 
has a similar sense in like circumstances? And 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BRAIN. 59 

are not physicians in the habit of trusting to these 
intuitions ? It might be humbling to the pride of 
human reason to learn how much of what is used 
in medical practice now, originated in intuitive 
suggestion ; and how much >of the remainder was 
from pure accident, and how little is the result of 
scientific research and induction. And after all, 
where have we a specific and a surety ? It would 
be wise therefore in physicians, physiologists, and 
divines, not to refuse the new light which is yielded 
by mesmerism. There is no haste, however. All 
will come out clear enough, and be in the end as it 
should be. All that need be desired is patience, and 
the good will of good men. 

I have now given you a general notion of the 
different modes by which I conceive the functions 
of the brain may be ascertained ; and I feel satisfied 
that your sense and experience, free from any 
prejudice on the subject, will enable you, at once, 
to form a just estimate of their value. I will pro- 
ceed to explain to you what appears to me to be 
established, and my views of the general arrange- 
ment of the organs of the brain. This is what 
natural theologians would consider the design or 
final cause ; but I can conceive of it only as the 
general form of certain relations, developed in 
nature according to necessary and internal laws. If 
the brain be rightly understood, we may expect to 
find the same essential harmony and fitness that we 
discover in all other natural objects with which we 
are acquainted, and in which all of necessity exist. 



60 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

I begin, as you suggest, with the lower and lesser 
brain — the cerebellum. Here I find a number of 
organs associated in groups, and having a special 
relation to the bodily conditions ; the functions of 
the cerebrum, the superior brain, relating to the 
external world, and also to those faculties of the 
cerebellum. The lesser brain, I may say, for dis- 
tinction's sake, is more especially the brain of the 
body, and the cerebrum of the mind. In this 
seems to rest the fundamental distinction between 
the two brains. 

In the second place, we must notice the groupings 
and localities of the organs, in their relations to 
each other, to the nerves of sense, or sense chan- 
nels, and to the end or object (if I may so speak) 
of the particular faculties. We shall always find 
that the power is near its work, and in near con- 
junction with other powers or parts with which it 
has to act. In this' principle we shall find a guide 
for our investigations, both as regards Man and other 
animals, and in the pursuit of comparative anatomy. 
But I think I shall be best understood if I indicate 
the separate faculties and the position of the organs 
in the first place. 

The side, or outer portion of the cerebellum, is 
appropriate to the Muscular conditions. The part 
immediately behind the ear relates to Muscular 
Movements. I wish to avoid precise definitions, so 
as to leave the subject as Bacon admonishes, as in a 
state of growth. Joining with this power, and 
extending to nearly half way between the ear and 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BRAIN. 61 

occiput, or centre, and on the upper side of the 
cerebellum, is what I have called the Muscular Sense. 
It induces a sense of the condition of the muscles. 
Beneath this is the faculty of Muscular Force. 
In mesmerized subjects fit for the experiment, you 
can, by exciting the first organ, cause movements, 
or a disposition to be in motion j or produce, when 
the patient is insensible or rigid, the cataleptic con- 
dition, or the power to move the limbs about as 
upon wires, or as moving upon a pivot ; — the limbs 
remaining in the position in which you place them. 
The Muscular Sense gives them the sense of these 
positions, and other conditions also of the muscles, 
as regards strength, &c. : and together these organs 
induce a desire for muscular exercise. When mes- 
merized persons are quite insensible to pressure, or 
other conditions of the limbs, excite this organ of 
Muscular Sense, and they instantly become sensible 
of their muscular state. In many instances, the 
arms may be extended rigid in the air for an hour, 
the sleepers being quite unaware of the fact, even 
though they may be able to converse with you. 
Similar anomalous conditions are induced under 
chloroform. The exciting of the organ of Muscular 
Force induces rigidity mostly on the same side as 
the organ excited : which rigidity seems to be 
undirected and unused force. Here then you see 
the origin of the muscular powers and of the mus- 
cular sense described by Dr. Brown and others, and 
which Sir Charles Bell perceived to be necessary. 
Your instance of the lady in trance is one of those 
6 



62 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

singular cases of which the interest is so great. I 
have witnessed it often, induced by mesmerism, 
when there has been the appearance of death, and 
incapacity for the slightest movement, to indicate 
life or attract attention. Again, there is the sleep- 
walker, apparently without consciousness j and the 
opposite state, — of consciousness and fright, and 
the feeling of inability to move, which we call 
nightmare. Another state of dream is that of fly- 
ing, or being carried along, and of slipping down a 
precipice ; the sense of motion, independent of 
exertion, or of any muscular feeling. We shall 
begin to have a better understanding of dreams, I 
think, presently. You will see, at once, the rela- 
tion of these muscular powers to the different 
character of fits, and many other abnormal con- 
ditions. 

Towards the centre of the cerebellum, I find the 
organs appropriate to the different bodily pains and 
pleasures, temperature, &c, — such as indicate the 
condition of the body, rather than in relation to 
external things. The innermost portions of the 
cerebellum relate to the more secret doings of the 
internal functions, — the growth, secretions, and 
replenishings of the body. In the central part of 
the cerebellum is that which relates to the physical 
conditions of the amative state ; but that love 
which is the desire of union with the opposite sex, 
is the central organ of the cerebrum, immediately 
above the cerebellic organ of the physical relation. 
In regard to pain, Ave must remember one very 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BRAIN. 63 

remarkable fact, that some sleepers are so insensible 
to pain, that you might cut off their limbs without 
their knowledge, and while they are talking or 
laughing with you ; and yet they will feel instantly 
any pain inflicted on the mesmerizer. Sometimes 
they will refer the pain to the same part in them- 
selves ; at other times, feel it as in their mesmerizer, 
and be greatly disturbed by it. Ann Vials, on the 
nerves of motion or sensation in the stump of the 
arm that had been removed, being irritated from 
any cause, feels the motion or pain, as the case 
may be, as in the limb ; the bending of a finger 
and thumb, or pain in a particular spot, just as if 
the arm were in its place. We refer pain to a dis- 
turbed part, just as we refer noise to a distant place 
or object. If a ray of light is, as it were, cut in 
half, and reflected from a mirror, we do not see it 
on the mirror, but as behind the mirror, the whole 
distance it has come. 

But we shall never get on if we diverge into 
these relations by excursions into Cosmos. There 
does certainly seem something truly wontlrous in 
being able by the slightest touch, as by magic, to 
cause a person to be instantly sensible or insensible 
to any degree of pain : but what we know of the 
effects of a few breathings of chloroform diminishes 
the apparent marvel, while it adds to the real inter- 
est of the condition, as affording another evidence 
and mode of experiment. It is remarkable, the 
rapidity with which a particular state may be in- 
duced or removed ; — intense anger, for instance, 



64 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

in a moment being converted to benevolence and 
tears j — the sense of pain being stayed, and com- 
plete rigidity dissolved with a breath. Our friend, 
Mrs. W., used to go into a strange state of rigidity 
when mesmerized. It would take, I believe, some- 
times half an hour to get her wholly relaxed. I 
saw her in this state one day, and breathed on the 
muscular organs, and she was released immediately. 
It is the same with lockjaw as with other local rigid 
conditions which often occur under mesmerism. I 
have caused children, as I mentioned before, in 
their natural sleep to rise up and lie down again, 
or throw about their arms without waking, by 
gently touching the Muscular power, just as I cause 
somnambules to walk in profound sleep, and when 
no other excitement or pressure on any other part 
of the head, or desiring them and entreating them 
to move, will induce them to do so. In this you 
have a clear fact j an instance wherein neither the 
impression of my thoughts, or commands, or sug- 
gestions, or other means, avail any thing. The 
response comes as truly as the sound from touching 
a particular note on the piano. If this be a delu- 
sion, what may not be a delusion ? and we may 
ask in despair, " what is truth ? " I can cause these 
mesmeric sleepers to dream what I will, and make 
them fancy they have pain or pleasing sensations, 
as the case may be, or that they are in motion, &c. 
After any great muscular straining or exertion, I 
find pain in that muscular organ, both in myself 
and others : also in the central portion of the cere- 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BRAIN. 65 

bellum, under the influence of cold or indigestion. 
I have noted the intense and often fixed pain in 
the central portion of the cerebellum, in many 
cases of deranged physical condition. I make 
mesmerized patients hold a weight, and tell me 
where it influences the brain, and see how the 
excitement of that part affects them, and I cause 
them to trace their various sensations, injuries, &c, 
to the brain. Whatever road I follow, it brings 
me to the same spot. And then, again, I take 
Gall's method. I have observed the great develop- 
ment of the muscular organs of the lateral portions 
of the cerebellum in prize-fighters and others, hav- 
ing great muscular power, agility, or muscular sen- 
sibility. The gladiators, as you remark, were noted 
for having a thick base to the skull. I have ob- 
served also numbers of children with precocious 
muscular power, and the brain protruding at these 
organs, while I notice men with large muscles but 
little strength, or muscular tact and sensibility, 
deficient in the necessary organs. When the gen- 
eral physical or vital powers are great, the cerebel- 
lum is highly developed ; particularly the central 
portion. The results of vivisections confirm my 
statements, and cannot be explained under any 
other view. Anatomy shows no objection, but is 
wholly in favor of the new philosophy. Again, 
the effects recorded under morbid conditions and 
injuries to the brain, give sanction to the same. 
But you see it is quite impossible to do more than 
allude to such matters, except when you wish any 
special explanation. 
6* 



66 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

And here I must pause again, and leave the rest 
I have to say about the brain for another letter. 
But I may add, that I am far more anxious to set 
men inquiring by methods adapted to the subject, 
than to establish what I have noted as a new light 
from my experiments. The knowledge of these 
organs of the cerebellum in particular, you will 
perceive to be highly important towards the expla- 
nation and cure of disease ; and to be most sugges- 
tive and necessary to those who mesmerize. Every 
mesmerizer should understand phrenology and 
phreno-mesmerism ; and the physician who is 
ignorant of these matters of phreno-physiology, 
goes into the sick chamber with a light only on 
one side of his subject. 



IX. 

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

You say it would be an extremely interesting 
question whether one disease may not be made to 
drive out another. Do you mean by this any thing 
different from the ordinary medical practice of our 
time ? I take it, this is the whole secret of medi- 
cal practice, — the secret of giving calomel, and 
all the other horrible drugs by which doctors are 



ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 67 

wont " to set up one disease to drive out another," 
as they say. In this matter, my sympathies are 
wholly with the Homoeopathists, who prefer fol- 
lowing nature, and helping the actual disease out 
of the system, to driving it out by the introduction 
of another. But one wonders that the doctors have 
not got on, — such facts as they have, had before 
their eyes, — from daily causing a more manage- 
able disease to drive out a less manageable one, to 
trying whether a healthy person cannot take upon 
himself the malady of the sick, — not only sharing, 
but relieving the evil. You or I could at the 
shortest notice furnish them with exemplifications 
of this, from our experience in mesmerizing : and 
whenever they will attend to it, and put the matter 
to proof under their own eyes, it will be a great 
day for the health and happiness of the human 
race. It is a strange thing that the facts they must 
daily meet do not set them looking into them. 
You know my friend Mrs. H. C.'s husband died of 
consumption. When near death, within a few 
weeks of it, he was sleepless and restless, and suf- 
fered more from this restlessness than from any 
other cause. One day he told his wife that when 
her hands were on his pillow, moving near his face, 
he was aware of a soothing sensation : and he asked 
her to move them again. She had never, any more 
than himself, heard any thing about mesmerism ; 
and when by experience of what suited the invalid, 
she in fact made passes whenever he needed sleep, 
she had no idea that she was mesmerizing. He 



68 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

always sank presently to sleep ; and she always 
was aware of feeling exhausted, sleepless and rest- 
less. How many a sufferer have I seen relieved 
of one ailment after another, and daily recovering 
flesh and color and animation at the expense of a 
pain in my hand, or wrist, or elbow, or shoulder, 
and a nervous exhaustion which a cold bath, or an 
hour in the sunshine, would repair ! 

As to the communicating of an ailment, without 
any corresponding advantage, I had, however, a 
somewhat startling warning five years since. My 
sister was mesmerizing a little boy, extremely sus- 
ceptible, and succeeding in fixing his limbs, when 
I, inexperienced in the mysteries of the case, put 
my hand in, and made mischief. The boy was in 
a lively state of sleep-waking : and I amused him 
by putting my ear trumpet into his ear, speaking 
to him through it, and thus breathing into his ear. 
Presently he was found to be apparently stupid, — 
attending to nothing that my sister and his guar- 
dian said to him. At last, it struck his guardian 
that I had made him deaf. And so I had ; and 
nobody but myself could recover him. I was 
instructed what to do ; and glad enough I was 
when the hearing returned. 

To come back, to our present business. If we 
will not, in order to ascertain the seat of sensation 
and motion, question persons in the mesmeric sleep, 
why do we not question closely those who have 
never been mesmerized, but who yet may have 
something to tell ? Now, you know I never have 



ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 69 

a headache. Whatever disturbance I may be under, 
from illness or exhaustion, I never have a head- 
ache. During my long illness, however, through 
upwards of five years, one sensation was never 
absent, except when I was well opiated. A slight 
dull pain stretched across the back of the head, 
within such exact and narrow limits that I used to 
call it "a bar of pain." It was slight, as I said, 
and of consequence chiefly from its constancy, and 
from the regularity of the process of its removal 
by opiates. Under any one of various methods 
of applying opiates, the process was the same. In 
about twenty minutes, a numbness stole over " the 
bar," and stole down either side of the nape of the 
neck before it was felt any where else. Is this fact 
of any value to you ? And have you other testi- 
mony of how opiates appear to sensitive patients 
to take effect ? During those five years, I could 
never succeed in drawing attention to that "bar 
of pain," or to the course taken by the numb sen- 
sation ; and no doubt I was considered " nervous " 
for mentioning them so often, instead of being 
understood to be merely curious for the reason. 

You speak of the value, for observation, of pecul- 
iar cases and abnormal conditions. I can offer 
you two peculiar cases for investigation, the second 
of which, I have always thought, must be a pro- 
digious puzzle to the metaphysicians. I cannot 
think how any but phrenologists can make any 
thing of it. In remarkable contrast to it is my 
own. As you know, I have never had the sense 



70 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of smell (except once for a few hours,) nor there- 
fore much sense of taste ; and before I was twenty 
I had lost the greater part of my hearing. When 
any companions give me notices of distant objects 
or occurrences by means of any of these senses, — 
when they tell me what is growing in an invisible 
field or garden, or where there is music, or what 
people are saying on the further side of a reach of 
the lake on a calm summer evening, I feel a sort 
of start, as if I were in company with sorcerers : 
and it is as if I had once lived in a land of magic 
when I remember reading on my little stool in a 
corner, and being disturbed by hearing visitors 
whispering about me. Such an unusual set of 
conditions must yield some results of unusual expe- 
rience ; and I could tell you curious things of the 
good and evil (the evil, as I think, abounding) of 
the undue action thrown upon certain parts of the 
brain by the insensibility of the portions appropri- 
ate (as I suppose) to the senses in question. It 
seems to me that, for want of the " distraction " 
commonly enjoyed through the play of the senses, 
there is too little relief to the action of the busiest 
parts of the brain ; and life is made more laborious 
than can perhaps be conceived of by those who 
are using their five senses through all their waking 
hours. Among the faculties thus intensified, — u 
not overwrought, is that of consciousness : and 
this it is which I think, may be useful to you occa- 
sionally. If out of this consciousness I can illus- 
trate any of the doctrine you communicate, I will 



ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 71 

do so, as we go along. Meantime, here is the 
opposite case, — that of a child whom I studied 
with the deepest interest from the first year of his 
life till he died at the age of nineteen. 

This boy was an idiot, with senses of marvellous 
acuteness. Those connected with such cases do 
not like the word "idiot," and reject it if any fac- 
ulties exist which can be pointed to as an indica- 
tion of mind. This boy, however, could not speak, 
nor understand speech, nor communicate with, nor 
appear to recognize, any other mind. His peculiar- 
ities arose from early injury to the brain ; and there 
was a singular sinking and contraction across the 
middle of the skull. As for his senses, — he knew 
people and articles of their dress by the smell : he 
could not be cheated into taking in his food medi- 
cine tasteless and scentless to every body else : the 
faintest sound of distant music would make him 
roll on the carpet with delight : and his delicacy 
of touch was proved by the delicacy of his cuttings 
in paper. Towards the end of his life he was 
losing his sight from cataract ; and his eyes were 
never straight : but I don't know that his sight was 
early defective. He had little muscular strength, 
and no agility. The stiffness of the back, the 
absence of spring, and the rolling walk, showed 
injury, — it was supposed to the spine, — but now 
we might suppose it to be to the cerebellum. He 
had little pleasure therefore in active exercises ; 
but evidently very great in the exercise of the few 
faculties which he had in wonderful strength. 



72 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

I have mentioned his paper cuttings. They 
were all symmetrical, very pretty, and always as 
if fetched out of the kaleidoscope. Every thing 
about him became symmetrical. He could endure 
nothing out of its position in space, or its order in 
time. If any new thing was done to him at any 
minute of the day, the same thing must be done at 
the same minute every day thenceforward. He 
hated personal interference j but one rainy day, at 
ten minutes past eleven, we got his hair and nails 
cut while he was wide awake, and without struggle. 
He hated it still : but the next day, and every day 
after, at ten minutes past eleven, he, as by a fate, 
brought comb, scissors, and towel ; and we were 
obliged daily to cut a snip of hair before he would 
release himself. His " understanding the clock," 
as it is called, was as completely out of the question 
as his being taught Geology: yet was he punctual 
to the minute in all his observances, even when 
living on the sea-shore, where there was neither 
clock nor watch within sight or hearing. About 
number and quantity he could never be baffled. 
When he was out of the room, I would steal a 
brick from the great heap of little bricks in the 
middle of the floor : he would pass his hand over 
them, spread them a little, and then lament and 
wander about till the missing one was restored. 
If seven comfits had once been put into his hand, 
he would not rest with six ; and if nine were given, 
he would not touch any till he had returned two. 
Through his last illness (consumption) he kept up 



ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 73 

his habits, which were in him like propensities; 
and at the very last, when, in the exhaustion of 
approaching death, refreshment was attempted by 
bathing his hands, he did his utmost to turn up his 
shirt-cuffs precisely as he had done all his life. 
He could not do it, and sank back ; and this was 
the only point he yielded. He was exquisitely 
trained ; in self-control (by means of this strength 
of habit), in a mechanical patience, order and gen- 
tleness, which made his lot an easy one to himself 
and others, in comparison with what it might have 
been. A final proof, through him, of the strength 
of our instincts was that we mourned him when 
he was gone with a sorrow which surprised us, 
and for which we could not account. There was 
a charm like that of infancy, no doubt, in his 
innocence and unconscious dependence. Now, 
what can any but phrenologists make of such a 
case as this ? 

When we meet, you must give me some lessons 
from an actual skull, that may guide me in mes- 
merizing the sick, seeing that, as you say, every 
mesmerizer should understand these things. 

Now for the cerebrum ! Where do you begin ? 
7 



74 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

X. 

ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

It appears to me that the senses are simply 
instrumental ; that is, the media or conditions by 
which impressions of external objects are, under 
ordinary circumstances, made to the brain. I mean 
that there is no sense or consciousness out of the 
brain : that the entire perceptive power is within 
the brain. It is natural that we should expect to 
trace the nerves of each sense direct to the organ 
in the brain appropriate to that sense. However, 
this cannot be done. The nerves from the eye, for 
instance, do not pass direct to the perceptive facul- 
ties, but, like the other sense nerves, pass on to 
masses of gray matter at the back of the brain, 
which, however, communicates with the cerebrum 
and cerebellum. It occurs to me, therefore, that it 
is very possible that the sense impressions do not 
pass along the nerves into the perceptive region of 
the brain as electricity passes along wires ; but that 
the nerves of sense maintain a receptive medium, or 
condition of that medium, the impressions on which 
act directly on the brain organ or organs relating 
to such impressions. I think that the muscular 
and executive forces of the system are more nearly 
allied to electricity, and the receptive and mental 
powers rather to magnetism. I think also that the 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 75 

passage of the impressions from the nerves of sense 
to the organs of the brain resembles that from the 
external object to the sense ; as in the case of the 
retina in seeing : and that the combined action and 
associations in the brain, — in our thoughts, — 
occur in a similar way. We must not expect to 
find the vital actions to be wholly after the fashion 
of mechanism; but the view I have taken will 
seem reasonable to those who will consider how 
light and heat and magnetism pass from object to 
object ; and how pain may be transferred from one 
part of the body to another, and from body to body ; 
and how, under appropriate conditions, one mind is 
influenced by the silent will of another, or sympa- 
thetically receives thought, or other impressions. 
But I only submit this view as suggestive. I dare 
say, in time, I shall find some clever sleeper who 
will be able to satisfy me upon it. 

We will now cast a general glance over the fac- 
ulties of the cerebrum. Very general and very 
brief it must be : in fact, little more than a cata- 
logue : as the object is, not to expatiate on the 
developments of phrenological science, but to pre- 
sent the mutual relations of the faculties, as a prep- 
aration for pursuing our special inquiry. 

The faculty of Hearing consists of the simple 
sense of sound situated on the base of the brain, 
close upon the bony covering of the apparatus of 
the sense, and in intimate proximity to the organ 
of tune, or what we may consider as the intellect- 
ual perception of the nature and relations of sound. 



76 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

There is also the sense of Colors over the centre of 
the eye ; and the sense of Light close beneath this. 
The senses of Smell and Taste have similar divisions. 
It is the same with regard to pleasure and pain, and 
the Muscular sense. Weight is in connection with 
the muscular powers. To measure force — perceive 
or estimate weight — is quite a different matter from 
the sense of the muscular conditions and strength. 
Behind the organs of Weight and Color are organs 
appropriate to pleasure and pain, bearing the same 
relation to the organs of Pain and Pleasure, in the 
cerebellum, that music has to sound, color to light, 
and weight to the Muscular sense. There is no 
part of the subject which has perplexed me more 
than this — to understand these double conditions 
apparently of the same sense ; but there are many 
things which we must receive as facts that we can- 
not at first wholly understand j and it will be long 
perhaps before we attain a very exact and clear 
analysis of all the faculties. There is the sense of 
Hunger and Thirst, close beside the organ of 
Sound ■ and of Feeling immediately in front of the 
Destructive faculty : and before this again is a sense 
of the quality of food, and what is good for food ; 
a faculty in high development in the lower animals, 
and with some somnambules, and sick persons. 
The other perceptive faculties are very much as 
phrenologists have described them; — as Number, 
Order, Color, Weight, Size, Form, and Individual- 
ity : — all in a line over the eyes. Above these 
are Time, Locality, Eventuality, and Comparison, 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 77 

relating to objects, events, and resemblances in the 
characters of these. This is the analogical faculty : 
and on either side of it is Causality, — the sense of 
the sequence and necessary dependence of things, 
— the sense of the connection of effects with their 
causes. Joining this faculty is the sense of Incon- 
gruity, — the organ called Wit. It has been sup- 
posed by most phrenologists that the intellectual 
faculties described by them included the whole 
process of thought j but I was always unsatisfied 
about this. I find above what is called the organ 
of Tune, a faculty for the arrangement of ideas 
bearing the same relation to ideas that the organ of 
Order has to the arrangement of objects. For 
instance, in a museum, the one organ would be 
employed upon the classification of the objects ; the 
other to the mere objective neatness and orderly 
arranging of them. Above the organs of Wit and 
Causality, I discover the organ of the highest con- 
ceptions of thought, whereby ideas are contrasted, 
and we discern true distinctions. Bacon says that 
the greatest difference in the intellectual nature 
of men is, that "some more readily perceive resem- 
blances and others differences." The central 
faculty, unbalanced and unregulated, induces hasty 
generalization ; the other endless distinctions. This 
central organ seems to evolve the sense of resem- 
blance, inducing generalization and analogical 
reasoning, and the ideas of unity, general laws, or 
constant forms. The other faculty relates to judg- 
ments through the sense of difference. From con- 



78 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

trast are perceived true distinctions or particular 
laws. Thus we have the comparing organ which 
unites nature, and the one which divides or ana- 
lyzes ; aiding towards true divisions, distinctions, 
and definitions. Beneath this central organ of 
Comparison, lying under Benevolence, is what has 
been termed by a somnambule the Eye of the Mind. 
This seems to be power of judgment: — we might 
call it the Intuitive faculty ; for it is this which is 
chiefly concerned in clairvoyance. I dare say you 
do not find me very explicit ; but I think the less 
I attempt to define the better, so long as I can 
direct attention to the existence of certain faculties 
in particular localities. This faculty, this mental 
eye, seems to receive the result of the doings of the 
other faculties, and to be, properly speaking, per- 
haps the Mind sense, joining as it does with the 
Conscious power. Here seems to be the origin of 
the suggestive faculty of Genius. This seems to 
be the true Mind power, or intellect. It seems to 
split off into the senses, as light divides off into 
colors, or sound into notes, but to contain within 
itself the power of mind concentrated, when cut 
off from the ordinary character of sense and reason. 
Then all time seems to become as one duration ; 
space seems as nothing ; all passions and desires 
become hushed ; truth becomes an insight, or 
through sight ; and life a law. 

The faculty of Language is at the back of the 
eye, in the base of the intellectual lobe, and close 
over the instrument of speech. In these regions 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 79 

also we have the sense of Touch between Weight 
and the Constructive power, which, together with 
the Muscular sense, enables us to manipulate with 
such a correct measure of force and precision. 
Nearer to the centre of this under surface is the sense 
of Smell, which seems more nearly concerned with 
the sense of Hunger, the sense of Taste, and the 
Conscious faculty. Smell will relieve us in faint- 
ing, or cause us to faint ; and wake us from sleep ; 
cause hunger or nausea, and indicate the quality of 
food. Over the ear is Destructiveness, which ap- 
pears to be divided into the impulse to destroy, give 
pain or injure, and mere dislike. Any thing harsh 
or discordant will irritate this faculty. The notion 
of Freewill has been a constant irritation to it ; and 
we seek to resent and to punish * with the same 
ignorant folly that the nurse exhibits in beating the 
naughty chair against which the child has fallen : 
and hence the belief in evil spirits, and in a hell of 
fire and torment for " the wicked." Behind the 
Destructive faculty is the Opposing impulse : — 
above Destructiveness, the Secretive power, which 
may induce suspicion and disguise. Some men's 
lives, where it is in excess, are a continued game at 
hide and seek. Immediately in front of this last 
organ, is the sense of Property, adjoining Construc- 
tiveness and the Food faculty beneath. Here we 
have associated together the faculties which make 
us destroy for food : and when we do not kill we 

* Appendix B. 



80 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

cut up and masticate that which we devour. And 
here are the impulses to acquire, to construct, and 
to store up what we do not use. It is interesting 
to watch the action of these faculties in the lower 
animals. 

Above the Secretive faculty, and rather farther 
back, is Caution, inducing circumspection and care- 
fulness. A portion of this organ causes fear, — 
such as the fear of loss, or of giving offence, &c, 
according as it is acting in conjunction with other 
faculties ; and behind this organ is the sense of 
personal danger, inducing the start of terror in fear 
of injury or death. In front of this organ of Cau- 
tion, I find the impulse to labor, — the love of 
Industry, the right exercise of which is such a 
spring of satisfaction. In front again of this organ 
is Ideality, — the sense of beauty — the abstract 
sense of harmony and completeness. On the top 
and back of the head, in the centre, is Firmness ; 
on each side of which is Conscientiousness, — which 
divides into the sense of right, the impulse to sin- 
cerity and candor, and the love of truth. These 
faculties are described as being one beneath the 
other, — the love of Truth being the lowest, and 
the sense of Right on the surface. On the central 
portion of this coronal region is the faculty inducing 
reverence, awe, respect, deference, as the case may 
be. Its highest object seems to be, a sense of the 
infinite and abstract power, — the inherent force 
and principle of nature. It seems to convey a sense 
of our dependence on the mysterious force and rule 



ORGANIC ARRANGMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 81 

of nature, — of that which is beyond the experi- 
ence of sense. It causes us from its situation to 
look up, and speak of high things, — to sink upon 
the knee, and to bend before the semblance of 
power and majesty. Uninformed and misdirected, 
we personify,* humanize, materialize, the object of 
this sense ; and thus we find that the highest feel- 
ings, as well as those which we call the lowest, 
have lived through periods of misdirection and idol 
worship. Much of what is called Spiritualism, is 
to my mind but image worship, and most objection- 
ably material. On each side of this central organ 
are faculties inducing Hopefulness and Joy, associ- 
ated with a sense of progress and perfection. Near 
to the love of Labor is a sense of Motion irrespec- 
tive of muscular effort. In this region it is, that 
power or mind becomes embodied under the idea of 
spirit, and seems to take wing ; and we speak with 
reason of the flight of the imagination ; for this 
sense of motion following the central faculty, 
carrying us soaring upwards in space, we look up 
towards an imagined Heaven, and speak of high 
things : though, in a few hours, what was above is 
now below. When the temporary excitement 
(which may, at any time, be induced under mes- 
merism) passes away, we lose our wings: the spirit, 
as it were, seems to desert us ; and we are content 
with our fair world again, and the good things and 
the good people that it contains. From this sense 

* Appendix C. 



82 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of power extends the organ of Benevr^nce, reach- 
ing down to the organ of Compani. .:■- — resting 
there, like a crown placed upon the^teellect, and 
pointing out the highest morality and first duty of 
man, — to make others happy, and advance the 
general good. There is Ideality joiaifcg also to the 
intellect lower down, bidding us elevate, refine, and 
embellish life by real excellence and beauty ; and 
lower down is the Constructive faculty, enabling us 
to construct what is required for use, comfort, and 
elegance. — On each side of Benevolence is Imita- 
tion, — the faculty appropriate to the fine arts, 
which aids us to sympathize with, and enter into 
the spirit of, all we see. — On each side "of this, 
again, is Wonder, delighting in all that is new and 
surprising. It lifts us from the world of common- 
place. There is nothing more observable in a char- 
acter, than the deficiency of this faculty. There 
is a fall, at once, from poetry to the prosaic. The 
Eye of the Mind I have already pointed out as 
extending from behind Comparison, beneath Benev- 
olence, joining with the Conscious faculty, which 
is beneath the central external organ we have 
spoken of. Beneath Firmness is Will, — the exec- 
utive minister of the mind, adjoining the Conscious 
faculty : — as also, I conceive, the sense of Being, 
or of Personality. Nearer to the Will is the fac- 
ulty of Attention. Consciousness may act alone, 
— or almost alone ; and the other powers may act 
without our consciousness. 

Behind Firmness is Self-esteem, or Self-reliance j 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 83 

on each sid" of which is the Love of Approbation. 
Acting wi* ..e Conscientious faculty, these cause 
us to seek lf-approval, and the approval only of 
the discerning; and for our just merits — the 
recognition only of what is true. Behind this 
faculty of se ' " lufficiency, is that of Concentration, 
or the ability to gather up the strength, and com- 
bine the faculties, for one effort. It induces- a 
sense of power, and often, with Self-esteem, makes 
men fancy they are equal to any thing. 

Lastly, we come to the group of the organs of 
the Affections. The love of Children and of what- 
ever presents child-like qualities is in the centre ; 
and beneath this lies love, or the desire of Union, 
— marriage, — the blending and sympathy of two 
minds in one existence. This faculty lies imme- 
diately over that portion of the cerebellum appro- 
priate to the physical sense and condition of love. 
On each side of the Love of Children is Friend- 
ship, or ordinary attachment. 

Here then ends a rough sketch of the faculties, 
as far as I have observed, and in the light in which 
I at present view them. With a phrenological 
bust before you, you will at once see what are the 
new faculties and their situation. Doubtless there 
is very much to ascertain yet before we complete 
the physiology of the brain : but, in the mean time, 
every fact and every hint is of use ; and every 
landmark we can establish is so much security 
gained in our researches. 

Consciousness being discovered to be a separate 



84 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

power, we can more easily understand how so 
much is often worked out by the brain without 
consciousness, or conscious Will. We shall see the 
reason why the part in which the organ is situated 
is the most sensitive we can apply ourselves to for 
the purpose of waking a somnambule, or casting 
him into a deeper sleep, or changing his conscious 
state. We shall understand how it is that som- 
nambules feel the mesmeric power creeping over 
the brain until it reaches this part ; and that then 
they immediately lose consciousness ; and how it 
is that persons who cannot sleep so often feel an 
action or pain in that part : and also how they feel 
pain (as I have often done) on being greatly dis- 
turbed during sleep, or when endeavoring to sleep, 
or when suddenly awakened. We shall better 
understand also the laws of will and choice and 
judgment by considering the relations of these 
new powers, and why we have a love of labor, and 
a satisfaction in industry, and how every one is 
born to work. We shall be able better to distin- 
guish the character of different intellects, and to 
estimate the varied conditions of Love. We shall 
perceive how it is that we dream of flying, or of 
moving through the air without exertion. Dreams 
will become intelligible in all their various aspects. 
We shall understand why we experience pain so 
often in the brow, over the eyes, and this again in 
connection with pain in the cerebellum ; even why 
we frown, and half close the eye, and put the hand 
to the eyes on experiencing pain, or witnessing it 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 85 

in others. Phrenology in fact will now, I think, 
begin to show its own worth and truth in account- 
ing more clearly for many of the before inexplica- 
ble phenomena of our nature. These new organs, 
like those of Gall, have been discovered one by 
one, without anticipation. Let us now see how, 
upon a general view, they seem to form a har- 
mony, — a consistent whole. This is an aspect 
of the subject on which I have meditated long ; 
and I may say with continued interest and satis- 
faction. 

I fear that I shall convey to you but a very 
slight and imperfect idea of the general arrange- 
ment of the brain. In time, this wondrous organ,* 
this world of thought, will be depicted in all its 
relations and characteristics, after the manner of the 
physical Atlas. Then we shall have a true chart 
of the philosophy of the mind. 

In the first place I may say that 1 find the Per- 
ceptive organs in close approximation to the instru- 
ments of sense to which they relate ; and again, to 
the object or end to which both refer. The reason 
is this : — that the force and attention thrown in 
any direction put that portion of Jhe frame in 
action, or in tension for action, at the same time ; 
or, as it were, with the same effort. The organs, 

* "Saw Majendie, who seems afraid of venturing on his 
experiments in London, lest hare-hunters should cry out against 
him for cruelty. Some of his late observations on the brains 
of animals look as if the veil might be raised, which has hid the 
great secrets of nature." — Sir J. Mackintosh, Life, II. p. 413. 
8 



86 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

for instance, appropriate to perception by sight are 
situated immediately round over the eyes ; the 
organs of Light and Colors being in the centre 
over each eye : and the faculties depending on 
these first perceptions are higher and higher up, 
just as the faculty is less and less concerned in the 
first or direct vision of objects. The same princi- 
ple of arrangement we find in the viscera or organs 
situated within the lower body ; a fitness in the 
relative position of the parts. There is but a lim- 
ited quantity of nervous force and power of atten- 
tion or sustainment in the brain ; and this cannot 
well be used in two directions at once. The 
organ of Sound is close upon the apparatus of the 
ear ; but the sense by which we discriminate the 
qualities of sound, and by this the characters of 
external objects, is near to the corner of the brow ; 
and when stimulated to listen, presses forward in 
the direction of the sound ; it being a law of the 
brain that the head follows the excited organ ; and 
this in the direction of its object. This position 
with regard to the faculty of sounds is the best 
possible for the ear to catch sounds, and for the eye 
at the same time to recognize the cause of the 
sound. A similar relation or law I observe in con- 
nection with all the senses and other faculties. 
The sense of Hunger I find the nearest point of 
the brain to the stomach ; and Taste is over the 
palate, and Smell above, and in the direction of the 
apparatus of the nose. Language is close over the 
organ of the voice. Those senses relating to the 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 87 

body generally, and not to a local function, and 
those of touch, are, you perceive, among the inner 
convolutions, at the base of the brain. The Mental 
Eye is an inner convolution, central, and immedi- 
ately behind the intellectual faculties. Conscious- 
ness is an inner and the most central faculty of all, 
as relating to all ; whilst the acting minister, the 
Will, stands behind, adjoining to the Concentrative 
power, and with Firmness above. Those organs 
acting mostly together are situated together. The 
Affections are a group by themselves ; with the 
Concentrative power above, and the Sensual facul- 
ties below. When men have been wandering 
amidst spiritual fancies, or are following the intel- 
lect too long, the affections draw them back to 
home and friends, and let the fatigued organs 
repose. We find again Ideality bordering upon the 
sense of Order and Harmony. The Intellectual 
faculties are together in front. The Destructive 
and Opposing faculties again are together, with 
their instrument, the Muscular faculties, immediate- 
ly behind, but with Caution and Secretiveness 
holding a check upon them above. 

An objection might be made to this view, that 
the organs are double ; and the side organs, — Ide- 
ality, for instance, — are widely apart. This is 
true : but then we must remember (and here the 
exception may prove the rule), that we usually 
think only on one side of the brain at a time, 
except under great excitement. But the organs 
most used, and more frequently required to act 



88 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

together, are nearer to the central line, where the 
two organs come in close contact, with slight par- 
titions between. And if we consider those central 
organs, that is, from Individuality over the nose 
round over the head to Love, we shall find a pur- 
pose or reason for these organs being central. Indi- 
viduality relates to the whole, of which Color, 
Space, Weight, &c, are but qualities. It is a kind 
of abstract ; and adjoining and around it are Size, 
Form, Locality, &c. And certainly you can hardly 
recognize an object without a sense of its position, 
form and size. 

The next central organ recognizes events, irre- 
spective of particulars. Above lies Comparison, — 
the sense of resemblance, suggesting unity from the 
analogy of knowledge. Beneath is the Eye of the 
Mind, — the abstract Mind ; — and then Conscious- 
ness, or central being ; — Benevolence, contemplat- 
ing universal happiness : — and then the sense of 
universal Power, Rule, and the dependence conse- 
quent on these. Then Firmness, like a central 
hold or prop : — the Will and Concentrative faculty ; 
— and Self-reliance, — and Love ; all central pow- 
ers involving unity or oneness. 

The faculties of the Coronal region are all those 
furthest removed from sense impressions and bodily 
relations, with Consciousness deep in the midst, and 
joining upon that faculty which has the power (at 
least under certain conditions) of acting inde- 
pendently of the ordinary processes of sense and 
reason ; and in which perception and judgment may 



ORGANIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE CEREBRUM. 89 

be said to become one. The cerebellum, on the 
contrary, having specially to do with the bodily 
conditions, is situated behind and beneath all the rest. 
The Muscular powers form the lateral portions, 
with their master passions, Combativeness and 
Destructiveness, immediately above ; the limbs, and 
the organs to which they chiefly relate, being also 
lateral organs ; particularly the organs requiring the 
muscular sense and direction most. I think you 
will perceive that it is only by tracing out these 
relations, or laws of position, that we shall discover 
a clew, whereby to find our way through all the 
difficulties of Comparative Anatomy. It appears, 
also, that the lower side of the cerebellum has most 
to do with the activity of the body, and the upper 
side with the senses, — these senses bearing a rela- 
tion to the intellect, as well as to the bodily condi- 
tions. The lateral portions more particularly of the 
cerebellum, the muscular organs, are united together 
by the Pons Varolii ; and with its fibres are inter- 
laced the nerves of motion which pass down the 
spinal column. These nerves, for the most part, 
cross to the opposite side of the body ; thus form- 
ing the most complete means of varied action. 
This crossing of the nerves may account for the 
tendency we have to cross the legs and fold the 
arms. 

The central portion of the cerebellum, having to 
do with the secretions and general condition of the 
body and nerves, as regards health, &c, communi- 
cates with the body by a thick cord of nerve, 
8* 



90 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

forming the back portion of the spinal column — 
communicating by another cord with the brain and 
nerves of sense. From its function, we should 
expect to find this part the first that is formed in 
the foetus : and this is the case. The brain of the 
foetus " consists, about the second month, chiefly of 
the mesial parts of the cerebellum, corpora quadri- 
gemina, &c," and goes on expanding, as it were, 
from this into the other parts of the convolutions.* 
But without going further, (and I fear I have 
been too lengthy already,) I think I am now justi- 
fied in saying that the views of phrenologists, and 
these additions of mine, are in accordance with the 
results of anatomy, and present a remarkable show 
of consistent relations. 

We have now gone over, in a hasty way, what I 
regard as the means of discovering the functions of 
the brain, and what I have as yet discovered through 
the use of these means. What I have advanced, I 
give simply as my opinions, and as suggestion to 
others. I appeal to Nature as known by the facts 
before us. I have nothing to say to any one's 
reasonings f upon the question, unless they are sup- 

* See Fletcher's Rudiments of Physiology, quoted in " Ves- 
tiges," p. 226. 

t Galileo writes to a friend, " O ! my dear Kepler, how I wish 
that we could have one hearty laugh together ! Here at Padua 
is the principal Professor of Philosophy, whom I have repeatedly 
and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through 
my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you 
not here ? What shouts of laughter we should have at this glo- 
rious folly ! And to hear the Professor of Philosophy at Pisa 



DR. HOWE'S REPORT ON IDIOCY. 91 

ported by facts, and by a knowledge of the matters 
to which I refer. 

I have written so long a letter, that I will not 
remark upon the excellent instances you give me in 
your last note. It is such material we want. 



XL 

DR. HOWE'S REPORT ON IDIOCY. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

I was just going to write to you yesterday, when 
I took up Dr. Howe's Report to the Legislature of 
Massachusetts on Idiocy : and I found it so inter- 
esting, that I could not put pen to paper till I had 
gone through it. One of the best things in it is 
the quiet exhibition of the mess made by Law, 
Medicine, and Philosophy, of the statement of the 
case of idiots. One would think nothing could be 
done in the legal direction without some definition 
or description of Idiocy which might be of pretty 
general application to the class of the imbecile : but 
nothing can be more loose, and, at the same time, 
limited, than the description that English and 
American law give of an idiot. The philosophers 

laboring before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as if 
with magical incantations to charm the new planets out of the 
sky ! " — Galileo to Kepler. 



92 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

who have attempted to define do no better. Pro- 
ceeding from the idea that the mind is one thing, 
and the body another, only arbitrarily connected 
with it, and entangled by the notion of freewill, 
they talk in the most confused manner of weakness 
of the understanding as accounting for failure of 
the affections ; — of weakness in that connection 
which should bring the other faculties under the 
control of the will ; and so on, till one wonders 
whether the writers really believed that they had 
any clear idea in their minds when they wrote 
what was so vague and utterly unsubstantial. 

Here we have the law saying, that a man is an 
idiot, "if he has not any use of reason: as if he 
cannot count twenty pence : " " if he has no under- 
standing to tell his age ; or who is his father or 
mother." Yet, again, it says, " a man shall not be 
called an idiot if he has the understanding to learn 
or know letters : " whereas, one of the most utterly 
silly and helpless idiots conceivable (in regard to 
matters contemplated by the laws), was a man 
whom I knew when he was upwards of thirty, 
whose delight was to copy upon a slate the Scrip- 
ture lessons and hymns of the preceding Sunday. 
He could read, write, and even spell well (though 
deficient from birth), while he had no power of 
apprehending, in the slightest degree, the meaning 
of what he wrote. 

It must yield a sweet kind of amusement to Dr. 
Howe to read what Blackstone says on this matter. 
You know Dr. Howe is the benefactor of Laura 



DR. HOWE'S REPORT ON IDIOCY. 93 

Bridgman arid Oliver Caswell, the girl and boy 
who are actually without eyes and ears — deaf, 
dumb and blind, and Laura, if not Oliver, nearly 
or quite destitute of the senses of smell and taste, 
while, by Dr. Howe's singular wisdom and patience, 
they are educated into a high degree of intelligence. 
" A man," says Blackstone, " who is born deaf, and 
dumb, and blind, is looked upon by the law as in 
the same state with an idiot ; he being supposed 
incapable of any understanding, as wanting all those 
senses which furnish human beings with ideas." 
Rejecting the dogmas of metaphysicians, and dis- 
believing that Ideas are the relics of Sensations, 
Dr. Howe examined nature, and he seems certainly 
to have found, in the case of these two children, 
that, as you say, "the entire perceptive power is 
within the brain ; " and that the senses are only 
ordinary conditions, which may be dispensed with, 
if the brain organ can be reached by another ave- 
nue. I wish this medley of legal definitions and 
metaphysical assumptions could be exposed with 
us, as this Report exposes it in the United States. 
It is a very serious matter that the legal descriptions 
of imbeciles should be such as will not stand for a 
moment against objections : and I have no doubt 
we shall soon hear of the Legislature of Massachu- 
setts having brought up their law (in this depart- 
ment) to the level of such science as we have, 
declaring what kind and degree of deficiency ren- 
ders a man incapable of civil functions, and a fit 
object for the protection of the State, from his 



94 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

inability to take care of himself, without insisting 
on his being unable to count, or to learn his letters, 
or to tell his own age. 

Next we come to the endless classifications, by 
the doctors, of mental diseases. Considering, after 
the philosophers, the mind to be a unit, they take 
its morbid manifestations for so many essential 
varieties of disease ; and here we have, according- 
ly, a great array of genera, species, and varieties, — 
much as if we were set to work to classify the 
changes on a peal of bells, and conclude each 
change to notify the bringing to bear some new 
influence upon the peal. Then we have the dis- 
putes and hair-splittings about Instinct and Reason, 
and the difficulties which arise from the supposition 
of Man having an ethereal or immaterial soul ; in 
the face of all possible evidence that he is occasion- 
ally as truly moved by Instinct * as the trout, or 
the bee, or the beaver. After all this, I need hardly 
say that Dr. Howe is a phrenologist. He could 
not conduct his inquiry avowedly on the principles 
of that science, or base his report on results so ob- 
tained. He was evidently not free to do so ; but 
it matters little : for he could hardly have done 
more for the science, or perhaps the science for his 
object, than we see in the volume he has given us. 
To me it seems that he is not yet so sound as he 
might be. He encumbers himself with the unphil- 
osophical notion of an ulterior Spirit or Soul which 

* Appendix D. 



DR. HOWE'S REPORT ON IDIOCY. 95 

uses the brain as its " instrument ; " even while he 
points out the errors that have arisen from " con- 
sidering the mind a unit, and not admitting the 
plurality and independence of its faculties." Bat, 
though it seems to us that he might take a clearer 
and higher position than he does, his superiority to 
the doctors, metaphysicians, and lawyers, that have 
gone over the ground before him, is really exhila- 
rating to behold : and this superiority manifests 
itself (among other ways) by a simple method of 
statement, whose quietness is, in itself, irony. As 
here — " In a few instances," (among the alms- 
houses of Massachusetts,) "men of strong natural 
sense and of humanity, reflecting that idiots of the 
lowest grade do not differ materially in intelligence 
from the higher animals, have ceased to blame or 
punish them, for waywardness or misbehavior, any 
more than they would punish animals for the like 
causes ; and they have substituted kindness of treat- 
ment and constant employment for the old modes 
of punishment and confinement." A quiet intro- 
duction of necessarian discipline, is it not ? As I 
seem to have set in for a rambling letter, I must tell 
you one anecdote out of this Report, which appears 
to me charming. One poor idiot who had, as will 
be seen, several faculties in working order, but no 
" sense," as we should say, and some vexatious 
habits, was punished for his misbehavior, from his 
infancy upwards. The floggings and railings na- 
turally roused violence in him ; and by degrees. 
one after another of the household became unable 



96 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

to cope with him in physical force, till the father 
was the only person strong enough to drub him ; 
and to him it was becoming hard exercise. The 
poor fellow imitated what he saw, and inflicted 
what he experienced. He broke the cow's leg 
with an axe, and smashed the farming tools, when 
they would not do what he liked. One blessed 
evening, a member of the Peace Society was visit- 
ing at the house, and saw the drubbing, and the 
father's difficulty in accomplishing it. He advised 
other methods, and persuaded the family to inflict 
a new punishment, as punish they would. The 
poor creature was rebuked, shown that, if he mis- 
behaved, he should have only bread and water for 
his supper, and should lie on the floor on a little 
straw. He was not very slow in learning thus 
much. The next time the cow offended him, he 
remonstrated gravely with her, led her into the 
yard, got a crust of bread and some water, and 
spread a little straw on the bare ground. Another 
day, he hurt his foot with a rake in the field ; and 
he proceeded as he had done with the cow. After 
being duly scolded, the rake was laid on a handful 
of straw, with a crust of bread and mug of water 
beside it. The last report of the poor fellow is, 
" he is growing less violent, and more manageable 
every day." 

All this time, I have said nothing of your last 
letter. Do not suppose, from this, that I am care- 
less of it. It gives me a new notion, and glim- 
mering of insight into phrenology, at the point to 



DR. HOWE'S REPORT ON IDIOCY. 97 

which you have brought it. Order seems to arise 
out of the allocation of the faculties ; order, which 
was, above every thing, wanting before. The sub- 
jective and objective exercise of certain faculties, 
thus curiously provided for : the double operation, 
where a hasty observer would conceive of no dupli- 
cate : the discovery of the Intuitive faculty, the 
sense of the mind : the discovery that conscien- 
tiousness is a group or series of three instead of a 
single faculty, — these and others of your state- 
ments are profoundly impressive, as it seems to me. 
Almost too much so for satisfaction, when we begin 
to see dimly what obstructions of ignorance we 
have to work through. It may be that men will 
have to amend the specifications of these faculties 
as they advance in the examination of them : but 
it is far more clear that they will have to rectify 
their methods of analysis, — to set out on a new 
track in their study of Mind and Morals, and of 
much of external Nature. The old field of (so-called ) 
knowledge seems to melt away when we look into 
this new and tangible exhibition of the powers of 
Man: and in its stead spreads out a great unex- 
plored region, with little in it clearly visible but the 
roads which are beginning to penetrate it here and 
there. We are passing out from the phantasmagoria 
to the dawn, where all is yet shadowy and solemn, 
but wherein the chief points are fixed, and we are 
sure of the East by the light that is in it. I am 
glad you have not stopped to define while making 
your sketch : but I hope your entire view of the 
9 



98 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

provinces and relations of the faculties will come 
out, in the course of our survey. As far as I see, 
the system you indicate does indeed, as you say, 
" present a most remarkable show of consistent 
relations." 

Do you continue disposed to go on next to the 
evidences derivable from deficient senses and de- 
fective or impaired organs? Dr. Howe is strong 
upon the point that our only effectual knowledge 
of structure and function is had from observation 
of disease or deficiency. The exclusive study of 
the healthy and perfect may go on for centuries 
comparatively without result. 



XII. 

THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

Man appearing to be the highest development 
of nature, and his mind being evolved from this 
development, — a glimmering light in the midst of 
infinite darkness, nevertheless in its inter-relations 
presenting, as far as it goes, a true impress of what 
is, (and, if not true in relation to the universe and 
to absolute truth, at least true in relation to Man, 
and as a corresponding harmony, which is all that 
we need desire,) — it is reasonable to suppose that 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 99 

Man in his completed growth would possess as 
many channels of sense as there are different char- 
acteristics in external nature and his own body, or 
distinct energies or emotions arising from such, 
conditions. But possibly Man has not yet arrived 
at his fullest development ; and some of his powers 
or sense channels may be still more or less in a 
state of partial growth, or dormant. The entire 
body may be considered as the organ of sense ; 
eye, nose, mouth, ear, skin, flesh, bones, muscles, 
&c. ; or rather, the nerves and nervous condition 
ramifying and filling, as it were, all parts of the 
body. Even the brain itself is an organ of sense, 
as well as being the centre at which all sense im- 
pressions arrive, and from which all sensations are 
evolved. The elementary outward senses are said 
to be from Light, Sound, Taste, Smell, and Feel- 
ing. But under the term Feeling we lump to- 
gether several distinct faculties, — such as touch, 
sense of temperature, sense of pleasure and pain, 
and the muscular sensations. Sight may be said 
to be the most spiritual sense ; and then hearing ; 
while smell and taste may be almost classed with 
the feelings. 

By the sense of sight we perceive colors, and 
light and shade ; and through this, objects, forms, 
spaces, localities, arrangement, number, surface, con- 
struction, motion, events, resemblance, natural lan- 
guage, and signs visible. By the ear we perceive 
simple sounds or noise, tones and harmony; and 
we perceive also, or, as some would say, judge of, 



100 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the distance, locality and quality of objects; and, 
by the voice, indicate our meanings and conditions, 
by natural expressions, or by artificial language, or 
sounds corresponding with nature, gesture, and arti- 
ficial signs visible. The Muscular sense relates to 
the health and energy, passive or active, of the 
muscular system, or of any part of this, and recog- 
nizes fatigue and lassitude. In this sense we may 
include the sense of action and position ; and from 
the recognition of force by the muscles arises the 
sense of Weight, by which we become aware of 
the force of gravity in our own bodies, and in ex- 
ternal objects. The sense of Temperature must 
surely be considered distinct from the Muscular 
sense ; and so also that of Touch, by which we 
recognize surface and forms. And so also the sense 
of pleasure and pain. The tic and the toothache 
are certainly no more touch or muscular sense than 
is taste or smell. The sexual sense may be con- 
sidered a division of the sense of pleasure, or that 
faculty which, for distinction's sake, has been termed 
Common Sensation. We must note all the different 
characters of this sense ; nervous pain, — or pain 
from diseased parts, or deranged functions, and 
irregular action ; the pain from a cut, from a bruise, 
a burn, tickling, &c. Now, for instance, it is re- 
markable that the convolutions of the brain, though 
not sensible of mechanical injury, are sensible of 
diseased condition, and sympathize with the con- 
dition of other parts, — of the stomach, for instance, 
and experience great pain which is not felt in the 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 101 

diseased parts. Thus, the pain from mechanical 
injury and from deranged condition must be dis- 
tinct ; — for instance, the toothache and the draw- 
ing of the tooth. We have aches and acute pains ; 
local and general sensations. A pain from external 
injury would, as relating to matter out of the body, 
have more to do with the faculties of the anterior 
lobe, situated between Weight and Constructive- 
ness, where is the group of organs relating to 
manipulations, and adjustment of the muscular 
movements to an end. We have also the burning 
sense of fever and chill, with other modifications, 
besides what sense we may have of electric, mag- 
netic, or chemical conditions, and other higher 
matters. Thus the senses, or distinct channels of 
sense that we must recognize, are Sight, Hearing, 
Taste, Smell, Touch, the Muscular sense, Tem- 
perature, and the class which compose what we 
call Common Sensation ; — making eight in all : 
and if we include, as we ought, a Magnetic sense, 
we shall reckon nine. Now, all these senses may 
exist separately, or in various combinations, in 
deficiency or excess ; as it is with the organs of 
the brain, which together constitute the diversity 
of character ; and differences suited for all situa- 
tions, with the two extremes of idiocy on the one 
side, and genius on the other. 

In the deficiency or excess of some perceptions, 

it is often difficult to say whether it is the sense 

condition or the brain that is in fault. It becomes 

important, again, to consider how the exaltation 

9* 



102 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and use of one faculty depresses others ; and how 
the depression of one faculty will exalt others, or 
give them a more sustained force, or new direction 
and power. We know now by numerous instances 
of casts taken at different periods of life, that any 
organ or organs of the brain by use will increase, 
and by inactivity decrease, just as it is with the 
muscles ; but to a greater extent. Thus we have 
the means of actually remodelling a man's brain, 
as well as of destroying habits, and giving knowl- 
edge, and new direction to the faculties. This 
sounds very hopeful. But why so ? Because we 
have searched into fundamental and material causes, 
and have perceived (within a certain range) the 
conditions* and laws which determine our thoughts 
and actions. Without determining lawsf there 
could be no hope, and no regenerating principle ; 
and all teaching, preaching, and training, would be 
useless. 

We will now consider a few of those facts which 
occur to me as throwing light upon the nature of 
the senses. And first, let us look at that strange 
little animal, the Bat, — that twin oddity with the 
Ornithorhynchus : for it seems that we shall find 
most light amidst what is strange, unusual, and 
eccentric ; — amidst all that deviates from the bal- 



* "Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, does and 
understands as much as he shall really or mentally observe of 
the order of nature ; himself, meanwhile, enclosed around by 
the order of nature." — Bacon, Conditions 'of Man. 

f Appendix E. 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 103 

ance and ordinary form of nature. We shall no 
longer be entangled by the cobwebs of learning 
which men spin out from their own thoughts,* 
working under the lamp. The philosopher must 
be seenf in dissecting rooms, and museums, and 
menageries, in hospitals and lunatic asylums, and 
prisons. But on that, I believe, we are agreed. 
You remember, perhaps, that Spallanzani extracted 
the eyes of bats, and covered the empty sockets 
with leather, and that, nevertheless, these animals 
continued, in their flight, to avoid every obstacle ; 
and would pass in and out through small openings, 
and amidst wires, with the nicest precision. It is 
stated in a note to the English translation of Blu- 
menbach, that the same happened when the eyes, 
ears, and nose were all closed. I may observe, 
besides, that bats are particularly strong on the 
wing, and able to turn rapidly in their evolutions, 
from the power which they have over the manage- 
ment of their wings. They must, therefore, pos- 
sess great muscular power, and a nice muscular or 

* " When any one prepares himself for discovery, he first 
inquires and obtains a full account of all that has been said on 
the subject by others, then adds his own reflections, and stirs up, 
and, as it were, invokes his own spirit, after much mental labor 
to disclose its oracles. All which is a method without founda- 
tion, and merely turns on opinion." — Bacon, Nov. Org., Aph. 82. 

f "Hippocrates, the famous physician, lived a hundred and 
four years, and approved and credited his own art by so long a 
life as a man that completed learning and wisdom together, very 
conversant in experience and observation, one that hunted not 
after words or methods, but severed the very nerves of science, 
and so propounded them." — Bacon. 



104 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

tactile sense ; and, accordingly, we find the lateral 
portions of the cerebellum greatly developed : 
which is not the case in birds. The bat's wing is 
almost a hand as well as a wing. Where animals 
are differently constituted, with the organs of mo- 
tion or power more central or otherwise, we should 
expect to find a corresponding position of the mus- 
cular power, according to the rule which I ex- 
plained in my last. We must remember that many 
blind persons have possessed a similar power to 
that of the blinded bat, and are able to avoid 
obstacles, and to move among chairs and tables, 
even in a strange apartment, without touching 
them. I had once a very remarkable patient, a 
somnambule, who, with the eyes closed, could 
easily read any writing I gave her. She read it 
from the top of her head, or when placed on her 
hand, or, in fact, from any part of her body : and 
it was to be noticed in this case, that the more 
tightly you pressed upon her eyes, the more clearly 
she could see : or she would press upon them her- 
self. Now, the ordinary recipient of light is the 
eyes ; and of heat, the whole surface : but light 
and heat are only differing conditions of the same 
influence. It is not, therefore, difficult to conceive 
that the closed eye sense might produce a change 
on the recipient of heat, and thus effect a new 
medium for itself. Or the sense of light may be 
evolved from heat or magnetic conditions, as Fara- 
day's experiments may show. This lady, like 
many other somnambules and blind persons, would 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 105 

walk and even run between objects placed con- 
fusedly about the house and garden, without ever 
stumbling, or falling against them. Her eyes were 
always closed, and turned up and inwards. The 
case was the same if the face was closely covered. 
On one occasion she remained in the sleep-waking 
state for three days and nights. This was a 
young lady staying with my mother and sisters ; 
and I may say, that no one, however sceptical, 
doubted clairvoyance after seeing this case. The 
clear evidence and daylight - facts were too strong 
for scepticism itself. 

Bacon seems strongly impressed with the fact 
(for he repeats it several times) that " in the remov- 
ing of cataracts of the eyes, the little silver needle 
wherewith the cataracts are removed, even when it 
moveth upon the pupil, within the coat of the eye, 
is excellently seen." I may here observe, what a 
wrong conclusion has been drawn from those cases 
in which sight has been given by an operation ; as 
in the young man performed on by Cheselden. 
The retina and optic nerve, and the cerebral organ 
relating to the sense, would only gradually, by 
exercise, obtain the physical health and practised 
condition necessary to the full and correct discharge 
of the function. The relation with the great gan- 
glia of nervous supply in the brain, and with the 
cerebellum also, requires time to be fully established. 
In Man, the senses gradually progress. First, is 
Taste ; then Smell and Hearing ; and then Sight : 
but the eye, when complete, has its own power, 



106 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

without the education or existence of the other 
senses, of judging or perceiving objects, — their 
size, locality, and distance. The chick, and duck- 
ling, and lamb, have the power of sight and motion 
almost in a complete condition on first tumbling into 
the world. No doubt, touch is a help to the eye, 
but only when the eye is deceived by reflection and 
refraction ; or if otherwise imperfect. I have a 
blind friend who sees in her sleep. She is a lady 
about forty, of great intelligence — one of three 
sisters, all blind from birth. Among other pecu- 
liarities, this lady tells me that she always sees in 
her sleep ; — in her natural sleep. She has never 
been mesmerized. This lady is so honorable, so 
benevolent, and of such acknowledged excellent 
good sense, that all idea of her deceiving one is out 
of the question ; and the fact of her seeing in her 
sleep has long been known to her family. It may 
seem difficult to say how such a fact can be known ; 
but I have elicited what is, for my own part, satis- 
factory to me. She says that the perception she 
has in her sleep is intense and clear, and quite dis- 
tinct from all other impressions, and ideas arising 
from them. She has a sense of the chair, she says, 
from touch ; and the idea of this sense : but her 
vision of form is totally different from the touch 
impression, though seeming to include it. She 
sees colors, and light and dark ; describes their 
effects, and the similitude of those effects to musical 
sounds. She likens the sparkling light to the 
brilliant music, and shade to the graver sounds. 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 107 

She describes the distinction between light and 
shade and colors, and the relation of light and dark 
to colors and forms and feeling. She pictures the 
effect of light and shade on objects, and de- 
scribes the different qualities of colors, and their 
harmony in relation to the feelings. She sees the 
deep blue sky, the agreeable green of the grass, the 
sparkling on the water, and the glare of the white 
clouds, and simple light of the sun : and this sense 
in all varieties is wholly distinct from any other 
sense of perception she has when she is awake. 
She sees distance and space in a broad survey of a 
landscape at once, so different from any idea she 
could form from touch, and from moving about. 
It seems to me clear that she has a new sense 
opened to her in her sleep, which answers to those 
effects and relations that we perceive in seeing, and 
which is in fact Sight. But this is not all. This 
lady is clairvoyante in other respects, and frequent- 
ly in her sleep perceives what is going on in distant 
places ; and she also foresees events. With this 
fact her family are familiar; and many striking 
occurrences have happened, precisely as she has 
foreseen them : and in such visions she perceives 
forms and colors such as no one could have guessed 
at, such as the different colors of a person's dress-: 
and she is invariably found to be correct. Is not 
this case, therefore, doubly conclusive ? If this lady 
could have her eyesight given her, she could not 
only say that red was different from green, but which 
was red and which green : so that the bay in the 



108 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

celebrated story related by Hobbes might not, after 
all, have been an impostor. 

There are persons who cannot distinguish colors, 
though in other respects their eyesight is good. I 
had a friend who could not tell red from green, and 
therefore could not describe the relations and har- 
monies of colors, as this blind lady can. It is 
important to note that impressions are made through 
the senses which do not at the time influence, but 
which remain latent, and afterwards become con- 
scious perception. It is clear also that impressions 
do emanate from all objects in the dark. Witness 
the experiments of Moser, wherein impressions of 
objects are made on bright metal plates in complete 
darkness ; but, like the latent perceptions, are not 
seen on the plate until called forth by submitting 
the plate to a new condition. Some persons do not 
hear at all the sharp note of the grasshopper, whilst 
others are equally insensible to the lowest tones of 
an organ or piano ; and yet to each the perceptions 
of intermediate sounds may be equally perfect. The 
ear, like the eye, enables us to judge of distance 
and locality ; but it is important to note that the 
membrane of the tympanum, and the chain of 
bones of the ear, may be lost without the hearing 
being destroyed. 

It is a pretty simile, and a very ancient one, — 
that which likens a man to a musical instrument, 
and the mind to music. A harp or guitar in a 
room where people are conversing will often mingle 
a note in the conversation : and the note of one 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 109 

instrument sounding will cause a response from a 
corresponding note in another instrument. How 
similar is this to the sympathy which may be 
induced, and which often spontaneously occurs in 
love, and otherwise between two minds and bodies ! 
Petrarch absorbed the disease from the eye of Laura 
by gazing upon her. Now, when we observe such 
sympathy and respondings to occur throughout 
nature, we may see that it is not necessary that 
impressions should run along the nerves into the 
brain ; and we may the better conceive how each 
sense, like the strings of a guitar, responds to that 
motion of which it is the parallel, and the brain 
organ again to this. Indeed, it is difficult, I should 
say impossible, to conceive how all the variety of 
differences in form, position, color, &c, which we 
receive in one perception, could run through a nerve. 
Yet we know what a multitude of motions, so to 
speak, occur in one medium at one time. The ray 
or energy from every object, and every part and 
point of such object, with all the differences in 
color, light and shade, &c, must exist at the same 
instant in every point of space within their influ- 
ence. Light, heat, colors in all shades and varie- 
ties, smells, magnetic virtues, — all these together 
can hang in the air, and all in each point of the 
space at the same time, and without disturbing 
sounds which exist in the same way, and in the 
same places. The marvel of this makes clairvoy- 
ance seem simple and natural, — a common affair. 
The different senses seem to pick out, or be influ- 
10 



110 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

enced each by its class of motions : they seem 
essential for life and practice, and to prevent confu- 
sion and excess, but certainly not to be necessary 
conditions of perception. 

I have myself been aware of a sense like that 
which has been instanced above. At one time, I 
had a singular perception or consciousness, when 
approaching my door at night, of letters lying on 
my table, which had come during my absence. I 
perceived their number, sizes, general import, and 
from whom they were. This was no fancy of 
mine ; for I long doubted whether it were any thing 
more than guessing and coincidence : but then, the 
perception or sight of them was different from the 
image we form in the mere idea of things. At 
length one evening, I saw very distinctly, when a 
few steps from my door, two letters on my table ; 
and from the same person. Now, I thought, this 
will show me that these perceptions are crude 
fancies ; for I had received a letter from the same 
person the day before ; and it was out of all proba- 
bility that there should be two more letters the next 
day from the same person, by the same post. On 
entering the room, there were the two letters, sure 
enough, and lying precisely as I had seen them : 
and I must say it made me start ; for this I could 
not suppose to be a coincidence. — Again, to give 
you another piece of my experience, in relation to 
the sympathetic qualities of the human frame, — I 
told you, I think, of the sense of pain which I had 
in my hand when I had been removing severe pain 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. Ill 

by mesmerism. The patient would shrink from 
me, as from an infected person ; or, if I accidentally 
touched such patients, my hand would burn them, 
as they said, with pain, until I had washed my 
hands, I have thus taken a pain from one part, 
held it in my hand, as it were, and then planted it 
in another part of the patient, and it has gone out 
from me. And, as I have healed others without 
their knowledge, so have I found the power taken 
out of me by one requiring it, without my will or 
knowledge. On holding letters from my patients, 
I have felt pain or other sensations in my hands, 
and have thus been enabled to judge of the condi- 
tion of my patient. This may seem incredible to 
some : but so it has been. On one occasion, I was 
demesmerizing a patient ; and the influence seemed 
to pass into a lady standing close by. The patient 
woke ; but the other ran screaming away, like one 
possessed ; and I thought of the devils cast into 
the herd of swine. 

When considering the senses, we must not forget 
the sensitive plant, and how the state induced is 
communicated from leaf to leaf; and how much 
occurs in the animal economy from mere irritability, 
and the association of parts, by which combined 
actions are induced to an end, without conscious- 
ness or conscious will. Phrenologists consider 
Consciousness to be evolved in the action of every 
organ, and to be a necessary condition of such 
action. But this is a mistake, not only as regards 
actions in the body, but as regards the brain and 



112 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

mind. The calculating boy Bidder was wholly 
unconscious of the process or steps by which he 
arrived at his results j nor as yet have we had a 
somnambule who can tell how he foresees events. 
All that such seers can say is that it is so, or that 
they are told so, or "it" tells them so; or the 
" voice " tells them so. And this opens a very 
important question in regard to this apparent second 
self, embodying the intuitive and unconscious 
higher condition. This voice and oracle of the 
mind is personified, and called a spirit or demon. 
It is called a possession ; and out of it are evolved 
visions, revelations and religions. Socrates had his 
attendant spirit ; and most original and great think- 
ers have, in one form or another, this intuitive fac- 
ulty developed. Swedenborg is a great example. 
He was a great clairvoyant ; but, in consequence 
of overwork as I suppose, from the sublime he 
slid into the ridiculous ; from the normal into the 
abnormal state ; from the genius into the madman. 
At any rate, he accepted his visions for realities ; 
and sense and divination mingled strange matter 
together. He thought he saw the spirits of the 
dead, and he embodied the properties of things. 
He saw his sins fall out from him in the forms of 
reptiles crawling on the ground : and the principles 
of nature, the universal cause, the God, appeared 
to him, and spoke to him, in the form of an aged 
man. Consciousness and reason seem to hold a 
middle range, between mere energy of the senses 
and the higher sense, — of divination : for every 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 113 

faculty of the mind is but a sense or instinct. In 
the trance, when the outer conditions of sense are 
dormant, this inner condition often becomes more 
highly developed, and appears to take the place of 
the outer senses j and we attain knowledge at first 
hand, as it were, and stand closer to the law and 
principle of things. But you seldom find this state 
pure and without the alloy of common impressions 
and dreaming. The intuitive state throws genius 
into our ordinary faculties ; but our ordinary con- 
ditions often damage and confuse the intuitive 
sense : but some clairvoyants can analyze or per- 
ceive the limits and distinctions between the false 
impressions and true sight. But we are ascending 
too high. I saw a lady yesterday, who is unac- 
quainted with phrenology and with my views, and 
who had had headache for the last week, accom- 
panied by slight insensibility of the arm, on the 
same side as the headache. At one time, when 
she used to suffer from these headaches, the arm 
was almost insensible, and partly paralyzed. The 
pain is in the cerebellum, at the top, and nearer to 
the centre than the muscular power. You can 
cover the spot with your finger. It is also in the 
front lobe, behind the eye, in those perceptive 
powers relating to the bodily sensations which I 
have referred to. The pains never shift to the 
other side of the brain, or influence the other side 
of the body. The pain in the cerebellum is a 
duller pain or ache than that which is in front. 
These headaches are not bilious ; or the pain would 
10* 



114 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

extend to the gustative organs in front of the 
Destructive faculty. This lady has long been sub- 
ject to these headaches, and medical men have 
tried their utmost to relieve them ; but now they 
desist, and declare they can do nothing, and do not 
understand them. But a little mesmeric sleep, and 
treatment for half an hour, removes the evil ; and 
it does not recur for weeks or months. This lady 
related to me an interesting fact also concerning 
the double nature of our faculties ; that she could 
not get to sleep for a long time the night before, 
on account of two noises going on in her brain in 
different parts. She said that one was a sharper 
sound, and she pointed out the situation to me ; 
and the other was a dull sound, in the position 
which I have noted as the organ of sound, — a 
faculty close upon the apparatus, or bony com- 
partment of the ear. These sounds followed each 
other, beat after beat, and probably had to do with 
the pulsation. Of course, when there is any lost 
sense, we must examine the head. In you, for 
instance, I observe a most decided depression at 
the organ of taste, whilst the perceptive faculties, 
relating to visual impressions, ranging over the 
eyes, are strikingly prominent. What a contrast 
with so many who are blind ! 

I met with a curious instance lately of a fact 
well known, but always instructive in regard to the 
force of our absorbing or receptive power. A 
friend's gardener, after taking a few pinches of 
flour of sulphur, to sprinkle over a plant, and 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 115 

cleansing his hands immediately afterwards, found 
how subtle was its influence through the system, 
and out again from his body, and through his 
clothes, so that the money in his pocket, and other 
metal about him, became tarnished. What is there 
now more subtle and wonderful in mesmeric action 
than this ? Here the system receives a general in- 
fluence which, though unfelt by the individual, is 
potent in its effects. Other substances will produce 
similar effects. I know a case of a lady who could 
not touch the brass knobs of her doors for some 
weeks, from their producing pain, and partly para- 
lyzing the arm : and of another lady who was dif- 
ferently affected by the approach of various metals, 
and other substances. Medicines rubbed on her 
skin would produce precisely the same effects as if 
she had swallowed them. I know a whole family 
who are disagreeably affected by the near approach 
of iron. Some are aware of the presence of a 
cat, by a sensation experienced without seeing the 
animal. 

From these instances, we may better comprehend 
the effects of minute triturated Homoeopathic par- 
ticles dissolved upon the tongue, — and especially 
when the system is in a particular condition in re- 
lation to any particular substance. One globule 
has caused me to have, in half an hour, a most 
intense headache. The trituration of the medi- 
cines probably gives them more force, and a new 
power to act. I have had patients mesmerized, 
who would be insensible even to the loss of a limb, 



116 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

who would yet be moved to convulsive laughter by 
the approach of a piece of silver ; and again, the 
laughter would be instantly stopped by the approach 
of a piece of steel to the part influenced by the 
silver. One metal will generally relieve the influ- 
ence of another ; and then, if continued, will pro- 
duce its own effect ; — a pretty exhibition of the 
Homoeopathic law ! 

Light destroys light, but does not interfere with 
sounds ; so likewise, in the animal system, two 
similar conditions cannot exist together : but that 
which produces the same condition would increase 
the disease, or bring it to a crisis, and so carry it 
off. And by mesmerism or otherwise, I, think a 
state of disease in one person may be made to 
destroy a similar condition in another person. 

The difficulty I see in mesmerism is, that the 
same medicine does not produce the same effect on 
different constitutions, or at different times : or a 
medicine may be useful only when succeeding in a 
particular order. But a somnambule judges by an 
instinct of the peculiar condition and constitution 
of the individual submitted ; and thus measures 
the precise wants of the case. Some somnambules 
and other sensitive persons can perceive most deli- 
cate influences from metals, crystals, &c., as Baron 
Reichenbach's experiments * abundantly show us. 
They also perceive light emanating from certain 

* Reichenbach's "Researches on Magnetism, &c, in their re- 
lations to the Vital Force," translated by Professor Gregory. 
1850. 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 117 

substances, and from the ends of the mesmerizer's 
fingers, or thrown off in flashes in the air. I had 
a patient who could see different colored lights, in 
a twisted form, from my drawing out (to use the 
technical term) from parts affected with different 
characters of disease ; and would always see my 
face shining with light, like phosphorus ; and would 
notice how bright or dark I looked, according to 
the state of health and force I was in. Somnam- 
bules often see through into themselves, as if they 
were all on fire, and perceive light emanating from 
the top of the head, or from any faculty in action : 
and more so under particular conditions of health. 
We must note cases of spontaneous combustion ; 
and those of persons who cast off an influence 
which causes motion in surrounding objects. We 
all know that sparks come from the hair and clothes 
of some persons more readily than others. After I 
have been mesmerizing in cold weather, the shaking 
of my flannel waistcoat will throw out sparks by 
which I can see the time by my watch. A som- 
nambule may be quite insensible to injury in his 
own person; and yet, if you cause pain to his mes- 
merizer, he will instantly feel the same in himself 
in the same part ; though, in some instances, there 
is no more than a knowledge of the pain existing 
in his mesmerizer, and an anxiety and discomfort 
on his account. And the same in regard to other 
sensations. 

In considering all the facts in relation to the 
sympathies and antipathies between individuals, or 



118 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the influences of one organized body upon another, 
we must not omit those important experiments of 
Matteucci's, by which it is clearly demonstrated 
that contractions are induced in the leg of a dead 
frog, even when severed from the body, by the ex- 
citement of another frog's leg close by : and Mat- 
teucci shows to demonstration that the induced 
contraction exists through an insulating layer, ca- 
pable of intercepting not only the proper or muscu- 
lar currents, but even that of the pile which excited 
the induced contraction. Induced contraction is 
then, he says, a phenomenon of induction of that 
unknown force which circulates in the nerves, and 
produces muscular contraction. It is transmitted 
through certain insulating substances, such as tur- 
pentine, oil, &c, but not through very thin plates 
of mica. He shows also that though electricity, 
heat, light, &c, are evolved by the muscular action, 
there is no evidence of electricity, or of an electric 
current in the nerves. The laws of the propaga- 
tion of electricity require conditions which are not 
found in the nervous system. The propagation of 
the nervous force is interrupted by causes which 
would not produce a similar effect upon the electric 
current. Matteucci considers the nervous force to 
be due to " movements in the equilibrium of the 
ether distributed in the nerves : " and that there 
exists an analogy between light, heat, electricity, 
and the nervous force ; and that the nervous force 
is capable of being transformed into electricity, 
under the influence of a peculiar structure of or- 



THE SENSES AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. ] 19 

gans ; as exemplified in the muscular actions, and 
the influence evolved by electric fishes. But the 
whole of Matteucci's account must be studied to 
give a due appreciation of all the beauty and im- 
portance of these experiments. 

Even more interesting than these, is the issue of 
a series of experiments which have of late engaged 
the attention of the venerable philosopher, Hum- 
boldt. " Occupied myself," he says* in a letter to 
Arago, " for more than half a century in this class 
of physiological researches, the discovery which I 
have announced has for me a vital interest. It is 
a phenomenon of Life, rendered sensible by a phys- 
ical instrument." In his Annals of Chemistry for 
June 1849, Liebig relates a method by which un- 
questionable results, bearing upon this discovery, 
were obtained. In order to cause a variation of the 
magnetic needle, sixteen persons held each other's 
moistened hands, and simultaneously contracted 
their right arms ; and then simultaneously their 
left ; thus forming a circuit of strong electro-motive 
power. The effect on the needle was manifest ; 
and opposite, according as the right or the left arm 
was contracted. The deflection reached 12°, any 
accidental influences being overborne by the inten- 
sity of the current. The aged Humboldt was not 
satisfied without effecting this result by his own 
volition. "Notwithstanding my advanced years," 
he says, " and the little strength I have in my arms, 

* Humboldt's First Letter to Arago, 1850. 



120 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the deflections of the needle were very consider- 
able : but they were naturally more so when the 
experiment was performed by M. J. Miiller, or by 
M. HelmkoltZj who are younger men." He says 
that " the fact is established beyond all question of 
doubt." —-What can be more interesting than such 
a discovery as this ? and what more serious and 
solemn than the indications it yields of new regions 
of discovery in regard to the essential relations of 
mind and matter ? 

But I am extending my notes too far, and must 
end. I will only advert to the common sense of 
pain so often experienced from a change of weather. 
I have a friend who is quite a barometer, and speaks 
with certainty of change in the weather many hours 
before it occurs. 

Thus I have noted down a few instances which 
occur to me as matter which may interest you, and 
as an example of what I think we should collect 
together in an orderly way, as a true mode of attain- 
ing a knowledge of the senses in particular, and the 
nervous system in general. Men separate the sci- 
ences too much.* We must study them in con- 
nection, if we would attain to just views, and 

* " If all which I have mentioned is not yet accomplished, it 
is because, neglecting the useful example of the ancient sages of 
Greece, men have separated from each other too far physiology, 
medicine, education, morals and legislation, instead of appreciat- 
ing their natural relations ; and still more, because there are few 
philosophical physicians, who can embrace the whole extent of 
their sphere of activity, and elevate themselves to the full dignity 
of their rank."— Gall. 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 121 

general laws, and recognize the philosophy of 
Man in universal nature. 



XIII. 

ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

Some parts of this last letter of yours please me 
greatly, and set one collecting one's experiences 
and old speculations under the new classifications 
in a way I enjoy. You must know I was a devout 
student of Hartley, all my youth through ; and a 
clinging believer in him for long after I had passed 
my youth. It is astonishing to me now that I 
could admit without question his supposition that 
Man has two primary powers which are enough to 
account for every thing : the capacity for pleasure 
and pain, and the principle of association. He does 
not even seem to think of the desire of pleasure 
and the fear of pain, which surely do not come 
under either of his two heads. It is the exquisite 
morale of the man, his heavenly temper and holy 
conscientiousness, which lead one away to think as 
he thinks, and feel as he feels. — All the while, I 
was despising the Scotch metaphysicians — as I 
still think they deserve — for classifying and illus- 
trating interminably, without having ascertained 
any basis whatever. Hartley had a grasp of some- 
11 



122 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

thing, however inadequate : they, of nothing, — 
unless, indeed, it were a clumsy method of declar- 
ing that Man has intuitions. — In the midst of all 
this, — in the midst of exhibitions of a sort of com- 
partments of an immaterial Mind, called respective- 
ly Memory, Imagination, Judgment, and so on, 
stood out before me suddenly Dr. Thomas Brown's 
discovery of the Muscular Sense, — a curious piece 
of reality amidst a symmetrical array of suppo- 
sitions ! After this, one could never more be satis- 
fied to lump together, under the name of one sense, 
things so different as perceptions of temperature, 
resistance, muscular ease or ache, and acute physical 
pain or pleasure, sensations of touch, &c. Now 
that we are released from the magical number five, 
in regard to the senses, we are free to recognize 
things as they are, — to number our faculties, 
and to enlarge the number, if occasion should arise, 
by the development of new — that is, hitherto 
unknown — faculties, which bear a relation to ex- 
ternal things. ♦ 

It is really vexatious that I cannot convey to you, 
or any one, what I think I have reason to rely on 
about this ; — the existence of some faculty or fac- 
ulties by which things can be known or conceived 
of apart from all aid whatever from the senses 
which usually cooperate in the presentment of ideas. 
You know that I preserve some distinct recollec- 
tions, on awakening from the mesmeric trance, of 
the ideas presented in that state. Well : twice at 
least I have perceived matters so abstract as to owe 
no elements whatever (as far as I could discover) to 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 123 

the ordinary senses. For instance, — I believe 
there are no persons (not blind) who have any ideas 
whatever with which visual impressions are not 
more or less implicated. I have asked every body, 
for many years, — every body whom I thought 
capable of the requisite consciousness and analysis ; 
and they all tell me that there is nothing so abstract 
but that they entertain some image inseparably con- 
nected with the thought. The days of the week, 

— the virtues and vices, — numbers, — geometrical 
truths, — even God, — all these have some visual 
appearance, under which they present themselves, 

— be it only their printed names. I have 
not had the opportunity of questioning the blind 
(from birth) about this : but I am assured by some 
who have, that they have the same experience 
derived from the other senses than that in which 
they are deficient. Now, in certain depths of the 
mesmeric state, I have received knowledge, or 
formed conceptions, devoid of all perceptible inter- 
mixture with sensible impressions. Of course, I 
cannot explain what they were, because they could 
be communicated only to a person in a similar state ; 
and not by ordinary language at all. They have 
since (during five years) been gathering to them- 
selves more and more visual elements ; so that the 
experience remains only an affair of memory. But 
it is one which assuredly I can never forget. There 
is no pleasure that I would not forego to experience 
it again and often ; — the conscious exercise of a 
new faculty. I wonder whether you saw (as I did) 



124 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

lately, in a newspaper, an account of Wordsworth's 
rapture in once being able to smell a flower ; — the 
only time in his life that the sense ever acted. I 
know what that is j for almost the same thing once 
happened to me : but it is nothing to the other ex- 
perience I spoke of. The one occasions extreme 
and tumultuous amazement — (the first experience 
of a new sensation) j — a sort of passionate delight, 
a conviction on the spot that we are only groping 
in a universe where we think every thing ours till 
a new primitive sensation comes to show us how 
far we are from comprehending # nature ; and then, 
presently, we have had enough of it ; we are tired 
of it, and turn to intellectual objects. You may 
like to know how it happened with me. I had not 
Wordsworth's good fortune, — to smell a flower. I 
was not well that day ; - — sat down to lunch with a 
family who were dining early on a leg of mutton. 
At the first mouthful of mutton, I poured out water 
hastily, and drank, — so prodigious, — so strong and 
so exquisite, — was the flavor. I went on eating 
with amazement and extraordinary relish ; but I 
was obliged to take water after every mouthful. It 
occurred to me to try if I could smell. There was 
a bottle of Eau de Cologne on the mantel-piece. 
At first, I could make nothing of it ; but after 
heating it, I could smell it • — not in the nose at 

* " For Man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of 
tilings. On the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the sense and 
of the mind, bear reference to Man, and not to the universe." — 
Bacon, Nov. Org., Aph. 41. 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 125 

all, — but a little way down the throat. It must 
have been really the scent ; for it was no more like 
the sensation from taste than from color or sound. 
I was 'presently tired of it. But I was rather 
shocked to find myself reckoning on my dinner, — 
a great, late dinner that I was going to. I might 
have spared my anticipations ; for by that time, 
every thing on my plate had become as tasteless as 
ever. There was nothing like this in the experi- 
ence of the exercise of the new faculty : — no 
surprise, — no tumult first, or disgust afterwards. 
It was inexpressibly delightful, — both the matter 
apprehended, and the power of apprehension. 
Nothing in the experience of my life can at all 
compare with that of seeing the melting away of the 
forms, aspects and arrangements under which we 
ordinarily view nature, and its fusion into the sys- 
tem of forces which is presented to the intellect in 
the magnetic state. But there is no use in dwelling 
on an experience which is, from its nature, incom- 
municable. I have been led to speak of it now by 
what you have written of our having eight or nine 
or more senses, and of Man being yet probably far 
from fully developed. 

Did you ever see Dr. Verity's book, in which he 
sets forth a theory and evidence that the physical 
structure and functions of the human being change 
with new stages of his civilization? Dr. Verity 
thinks that our nervous system was really a differ- 
ent thing a thousand years ago from what it is now j 
that either the structure itself has changed, or that 
11* 



126 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

dormant powers have been brought into action. 
This is curious : and so is the doctrine of an 
eminent physician of my acquaintance. — that, the 
progression of Man being the aim of Providence, 
that progression is provided for by the gift of a 
new endowment from time to time ; the last and 
greatest gift being that class of powers elicited by 
Mesmerism. Whether these physicians hold the 
personal progression to be cause or effect, they 
anticipate, as we do, further development. My 
own supposition is, that whatever powers we have, 
have always been there : and that what remains is 
for us to obtain control over them. All history 
abounds with traces of the Natural Magic which 
science shows, sooner or later, to be no magic at 
all ; that is, exactly as much of a miracle as every 
thing else is, and no more. Thus, we have the 
daughter of Sesostris, who might be twin sister, 
as to powers, with Joan of Arc j and the cures of 
disease by gods and priests in heathen temples ; 
and heathen oracles, and prophecy every where ; and 
witchcraft, and love charms, and ghosts, and second 
sight ; — all instances of the sympathy, and clair- 
voyance and prevoyance with which we are now 
familiar, and which science is tracing to their origin, 
or abiding-place in the brain. Now, if we ever 
obtain any thing like the control over the intuitive 
faculties which the wise mesmerizing phrenologist 
already holds over the moods and thoughts of the 
patients in a lunatic asylum,* how essentially 

* Appendix F. 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 127 

changed will be the conditions of human life ! All 
science is changing the conditions of our life. See 
what Geology of itself (a science younger than I 
am, I believe) is doing ! But how much more im- 
portant, — how infinitely important in comparison, 
— must be the operation on the human lot of an 
advancing physiology ! Only conceive of the time 
when men may at will have certain knowledge 
of things distant, and things future ! To expect 
this is merely reasonable. We now obtain from 
somnambules, and from persons whose intuitive 
faculty acts (as we should say) spontaneously, (i. e. 
without the application of Mesmerism,) fragment- 
ary though indisputable knowledge of transactions 
distant and future : and you and others are tracing 
out the locality of this power in the brain. You 
have found its locality ; and you are collecting facts 
as to the conditions of its exercise. If, as I believe, 
a similar scientific procedure never yet failed to 
establish a power of control over the agent which 
was its subject, we cannot suppose that it will fail 
here. All influences seem to be tending to the 
reduction of Fortuity in human life and affairs. 
By this particular achievement, it may be well nigh 
abolished. One is tempted to go into a speculation 
upon what human life must or may be, on such 
terms : but the subject is too prodigious. It may 
be glorious to ponder in silence ; but it is almost 
too great for discussion. For one thing, by the 
way, — how completely a matter of course will 



128 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

then be that doctrine of Necessity,* which now 
appears so indisputable to you and me, but which 
one daily hears contested with a shallowness of 
reasoning, and a defiance of evidence, which make 
one wonder when evidence will be received on 
moral, as it is on most physical, questions ! 

It seems to me that the most significant thing 
you have ever written to me, — a thing as signifi- 
cant as any one ever wrote to any body, — is that 
your blind friend, — blind from birth, — has proved 
that she sees in her sleep by having been actually 
prevoyante of visible incidents. If you can estab- 
lish this, — if proof, or sufficient testimony, of it 
can be duly recorded during her lifetime, it surely 
will be as vast a contribution to the science of Mind 
and of Man as has ever been afforded by any age. 
Can this be done ? If not done already, will you 
not set about it immediately ? You never in your 
life had so important a thing to do, and most likely 
never will again. Let us have proof that a person 
who never saw by the eye has declared any thing 
(not coming within the range of a guess) which 
was happening at a distance, or which happened at 
a future time, with incidents of color or form be- 
longing thereto, and we have arrived at the greatest 
discovery ever made by accident or research. 

I am thankful for what you tell me of your view 
in regard to the experience of persons using a sense 
for the first time, at a mature age, — as Cheselden's 

* Appendix G. 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENT. 129 

patients and others. I might give you some illus- 
trations here, too, — illustrations of how the exter- 
nal organ is a not indispensable apparatus for the 
exercise of the sense ; but I am detaining you too 
long. You are aware that when mesmerized, I, 
deaf as I am, have occasionally heard otherwise 
than through the ear, — as somnambules are seen to 
read with the sole of the foot or the top of the fore- 
head. And I could give you more evidence of the 
same kind unconnected with Mesmerism. But I 
have run on too long : and I want you to proceed 
to tell me what you think you know of the mutual 
action of different parts of the brain ; by what laws, 
and in what modes, action of one part excites action 
in another ; where the cooperation is constant, and 
where (as we should say) fortuitous. For instance, 
why it is that certain musical sounds and arrange- 
ment of such sounds arouse various affections and 
passions, — the same, at the same moment, in any 
number of persons, — as when the iEolian harp 
wails, and the war tones wake the spirit : and what 
you make of the great fact of the Association of 
Ideas. 



130 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 



XIV. 

FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES UNDER VARIOUS 
CONDITIONS. 

H. G. A. to H. M. 

I suppose that Hartley has been greatly over- 
estimated, and that his philosophy was founded 
chiefly on a rather superficial generalization of 
Newton's theory of vibrating media. I do not 
wonder at your disrelish of the metaphysicians 
who have had no basis of agreement. Mind was 
divided and parcelled out into divisions or catego- 
ries, by each writer as his fancy suggested, every 
one differing from the others, and each thinking 
himself most profound, and as certain of his posi- 
tion as any sectarian is of the evidence and princi- 
ples of his particular faith. You would find sever- 
al distinct faculties included under one term ; and 
then a simple faculty split into several ; or a mode 
of action taken for a primitive faculty. Thus 
Mind was divided into imaginary elements, just as 
Nature has been divided. Or you would find men 
building all the laws of Mind on some one fact, 
such as the principle of Association, — just as the 
laws of Nature were supposed to be included in the 
laws of Numbers. Thus Mind was fashioned into 
fanciful forms by the metaphysicians, while the 
physiologists were, on the other hand, slicing up 
the brain as they would a turnip, instead of unfold- 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 131 

ing it, part from part, and nerve by nerve, so as to 
trace out its intimate union, relations, and true for- 
mation, and place in the scale of beings. Men 
judged the mind through the deceptive, uneven 
and varying mirror of their own idiosyncrasy and 
consciousness,* neglecting material causes, and 
having no true method, or means of escaping any 
of the fantastic notions which met them at every 
turn, and stood out there like ghostly things prompt- 
ing only to deceive. It was Bacon who first set 
about clearing the road, and showing what were 
the dangers, and the helps required. But his ad- 
monitions have been neglected, and the conse- 
quence has been a confusion of ideas, resulting, 
since his time, in libraries rilled with metaphysical 
works. Out of the whole of these you cannot 
derive any exposition of the means of founding 
a philosophy ; — a natural philosophy, and true 
science of mind. Men have been careless of the 
admonition of Bacon, who declares in this striking 
passage, so fully confirmed, that "that which we 
have often said must here be specially repeated ; 
namely, that if all the talents of every age had 
concurred, or shall hereafter concur ; if the whole 
human race had applied, or shall apply, itself to 
philosophy ; and the whole globe had consisted, or 
shall consist, of academies and colleges and schools 
of the learned, yet, without such a natural and ex- 
perimental history as we shall now recommend, it 

* Appendix H. 



132 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

were impossible that any progress worthy of man- 
kind should have been, or should hereafter be, 
made in philosophy and the sciences." But I trust 
that however humble any of our individual efforts 
may be, we are now entering on a new era of phi- 
losophy, which began with Gall's and Bell's dis- 
coveries ; and that we may reasonably anticipate 
glorious results for the future. Far be it from me 
to put myself for a moment into comparison with 
any of the powerful thinkers and writers of this 
age, or of any other age : but we are admonished 
that a tortoise in the right way will beat a race- 
horse in the wrong. My only hope is in being in 
the right way ; though it be a way trodden by few, 
forbidden by some, and opening to us a class of 
phenomena to be at first discredited. But Time, 
which is the Mother of Truth, will protect the 
truth in its infancy, until it grows into manhood, 
and rules in its turn forever and ever. 

I am glad you do not think that I have forced 
the truth at all in separating the senses into so 
many divisions. Each distinct class of impressions, 
having a special relation, and being the result of a 
separate nervous apparatus appropriate to a special 
organ or organs in the brain, might perhaps be 
described as a separate sense. The feeling of the 
Muscular condition would therefore be a separate 
sense from that of Temperature, — assuming the 
existence of separate nerve channels. Much con- 
fusion has arisen in our notions of the senses. 
Montaigne calls a deception of the sense the fear a 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 133 

man experiences when looking down from a secure 
but very elevated position, by which his apprehen- 
sions are excited, and his judgment is deceived : 
but I suppose all that is generally meant by the 
senses is the separate channels by which impres- 
sions are received ; as the eye, the ear, the skin, 
the muscles, &c. Through the ear, we have per- 
ceptions by sound : through the eye, by light. If 
we strike the eye, or irritate the retina, all we get 
is light. A blow on the ear, or irritation of the 
nervous apparatus of the ear, gives a simple sound ; 
and it is observable that these original conditions 
of sense are less real impressions than, so to speak, 
those impressions evolved from or through them. 
For instance, light and colors and sound do not 
exist out of the impression, but only indicate con- 
ditions ; whereas, forms, spaces, localities and rela- 
tions do exist, as they are perceived under ordinary 
circumstances : for these are the conditions per- 
ceived ; and abstractedly, form by touch is the 
same as form perceived by sight, or through light. 
The further we advance from the sense, the higher 
and more complete the truth. Beauty, for instance, 
is a sense of completion, or the harmony of the 
relations consequent on the completion ; or on the 
way to the ends of nature, — the sense, however, 
being subject to imperfection and deceptions, like 
all other impressions ; and men see beauty in dis- 
tortion, and distortion where they had seen only 
beauty : and this in morals, as well as in external 
qualities : because the true seeing requires harmony 
12 



134 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

within, as well as harmony without, the mind. 
Otherwise, the mind, as an uneven mirror, or as 
colored glass, will distort or color the object, how- 
ever beautiful, and torture the truth into hideous 
and fantastic shapes. In recognizing this great 
truth, Bacon founded his philosophy, and the doc- 
trine of the Idols. 

One or several organs of the brain may be in 
excess ; and this may produce genius, in a partic- 
ular way : for numbers, for instance : or for musical 
sounds ; or for construction. Or certain organs may 
be deficient ; and then we have inability in partic- 
ular directions ; or more or less idiocy. It is with 
different men just as it is with different animals ; 
and, as we more clearly perhaps perceive it, in a 
piano, where the whole may be out of tune, or any 
note, or number of notes. The tone and power 
of the organ depends also on the quality of the 
substance of the brain, arising from original consti- 
tution, or from external circumstances ; the condi- 
tion of the stomach, for example, or the air we 
breathe : or the mind may be twisted from its 
proper action and proportion by the influence of 
habit or example, or other similar causes. But, 
drunk or sober, mad or idiot, a man is at all times 
the result of his material condition, and the influ- 
ences without. Some men are, as it were, a law 
unto themselves ; while others by their nature are 
disposed to thieve and to murder. Some men are 
wolves by their nature, and some are lambs : and 
it is vain to talk of responsibility, as if men made 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 135 

themselves what they are. "Can the Ethiopian 
change his skin, or the Leopard its spots ? " " We 
do not quarrel with the stone that strikes us," says 
Bacon : nor shall we quarrel with men when we 
know Man's nature, and that he merely exhibits 
the laws of his being. But society must be pro- 
tected from the evil-disposed ; and we must seek 
to develop Men's nature to its full and true propor- 
tions. Men must be responsible to take the conse- 
quences of their acts ; but not as if they could help 
their nature. Every thought and act is part of the 
development of nature, and of the history of the 
world, and of the universe, — of the eternal and 
undeviating law of laws, — of the fundamental but 
incomprehensible origin of things. I feel that I 
am as completely the result of my nature, and im- 
pelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the 
north, or the puppet to move according as the string 
is pulled. It is the action of the powers among 
themselves which directs the will, and controls or 
induces all the results of that thinking, feeling 
substance which I call Me. The substance wastes, 
and is supplied with fresh material ; which fresh 
matter is immediately leavened with the condition 
of the old ; in the same way that needles take the 
condition of the magnet. This substitution occurs 
in the horse, just as with his rider : hence a man 
or a horse does not remain the same man or horse 
at the end of seven years, but a similar one : just 
as a river is never the same, but only similar. It 
presents the same form, but only similar reflections 



136 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and other phenomena. So it is with Man, who is 
never the same, any more than the music from the 
piano is the same to-day that it was yesterday. 
Nature never rests ; but all is action, change and 
growth. Apparent rest is but the balance of 
powers and motives restrained. There is no death, 
but only change. When the diamond becomes 
charcoal, that is the death of the diamond, but 
nothing is lost. It is but another form. There is 
no spirit of the diamond passing into space. The 
most disgusting thing — the rotting carcass — is 
but a change, a transmutation to other forms of 
beauty. That individuals suffer for the general 
good, is a law of nature and of life : but good and 
evil are only to the part, not to the whole. There 
is no mistake nor short-coming in nature. What- 
ever is, is right, and essential to the whole, and 
could not be otherwise than as it is. The deeper 
our study of nature, the more clearly is this fact 
recognized as being as fundamental and necessary 
as law itself. Whatever we clearly understand in 
nature, we perceive could not be otherwise than as 
it is : as that three cannot be one, or a square a 
circle. As we advance, every condition and law 
will be perceived to be necessary truth. — I can 
judge something of a man's character from his head. 
If I knew the whole laws of the mind, and the 
entire form of the brain, and if I could recognize 
the whole circumstances by which the individual 
would be influenced, and if my perceptions were 
equal to the task, every act and thought of the 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 137 

man's life could be predicted. How do somnam- 
bules read the future, if it be not written in the 
present, and if the laws of the mind be not certain ? 
A Shakspeare could not make himself an idiot, or 
an idiot a Shakspeare j or any one be what he is 
not, any more than an eel could become a horse, 
or Lord Brougham turn into a grasshopper. But 
enough on this theme. I have been carried away 
by the subject. 

I spoke of the effect on the mind, of looking 
down from a great height. It is often asked why 
a person so situated feels as if he must fall ; and 
even, in some instances, as if he were impelled to 
jump. It is simply that, in contemplating the act 
through fear, the mind and nerves are thrown into 
the same condition as if one were falling, and carry 
the will along with the sense of the act. It is a 
species of imitation, and allied to what we "call 
fascination. It is a state which approaches to in- 
sanity ; as in the case of those persons who, from 
imitation, and a morbid condition, throw themselves, 
one after another, from the Monument. " Some 
from fear in the dusk, see a bush to be the shape 
of a man." The eye is made the fool of the other 
senses. — Others, on taking up a razor, not being 
used to such instruments, feel as if they must 
destroy themselves. The thought puts them in 
the position of doing the act. This state becomes 
abnormal and fixed, when people feel sure they 
shall say or do some terrible thing, — as, that they 
must destroy themselves, or some one else. The 
12* 



138 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

mind is off its balance j and the person becomes 
controlled by the force and fixedness of an idea. 
This may be continuous, or in fits. Executions 
diminish the respect for life, and stimulate the mor- 
bid tendency to destroy. The descriptions in the 
newspapers tend to brutalize society, and make us 
all worse. It is only knowledge of the Mind's 
laws, and the law of love, and exhibitions of good- 
ness and mercy, that will reform the world. Inferior 
minds will doubtless always be influenced by re- 
wards and punishments ; but these rewards and 
punishments should be of a more wholesome char- 
acter, and not such as brutalize, and encourage the 
selfish impulses. Preaching the horrors of a hell 
and eternal damnation, will never induce reverence 
for higher things, or reform the world. 

Yes, I am aware that sound is received by other 
channels than the ear. A watch put in the mouth 
is not heard to tick until the teeth are closed upon 
it. But this effect may not be wholly different 
from putting the poker to the teakettle to hear it 
boil, by establishing a solid and better medium of 
sound than the ear. It has occurred to me to try 
another experiment. I close my ears with my fin- 
gers so that I cannot hear the slightest sound ; but 
the moment I touch my forehead upon the watch, 
I hear the ticking distinctly. I think you told me 
that you heard a musical box with overpowering 
distinctness when placed on the head, while unable 
to hear any but confused sounds from it by the ear. 
The harder I press upon the ears, the better I hear 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 139 

the watch. And this reminds me of my somnam- 
bule, who saw more distinctly by pressing upon 
the eyes. I find a note of this occurring to another 
patient to whom my instance was unknown. It is 
recorded that a child subject to fits could only hear 
during their continuance by the stomach being 
touched, and the voice directed to that part. Sir 
C. Bell relates a case of a man who was insensible 
to pain on pressure, who yet could feel inside his 
stomach by pressing on the outside. In Mesmerism 
it is common to find a patient sensible of internal 
though not of external pain ; the internal parts 
being the last to lose sensibility. Can it be thought, 
then, so surprising that the large nervous appara- 
tus connected with the stomach should become the 
medium of impressions to the brain, when the 
other channels are closed ? To close the ears, and 
hear the watch tick from the head, seems to dimin- 
ish the marvel. I noticed in my last how much of 
the apparatus of the ear might be removed without 
impairing hearing. It is also stated that "a patient 
having the pupil immovable sees well enough : " 
and also that " persons who have had the lens 
removed for cataract still see sufficiently well : " 
and it appears that the sense of smell may exist 
without the olfactory nerve. But more evidence 
of the precise circumstances attending such mutila- 
tions and absent organs will be acceptable. Ann 
Vials generally felt as if her arm were still attached 
to the stump ; and by mesmerizing over the stump, 
I could make her feel as if the hand closed, or 



140 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

only two fingers or the thumb. Here is an in- 
stance of the delusion of the Muscular sense ; but 
this, of course, the eye corrects, just as touch 
corrects the delusion of the eye in seeing a stick 
crooked in water. Why these severed nerves of 
the arm should induce a sense of the arm being 
there, and of various positions and motions con- 
nected with such an image, is not yet very clear to 
me : but Ann Vials may truly be said to be haunted 
by the ghost of her own arm. That the nerves 
of the stump did once convey impressions to and 
from a hand, does not clear the act to my mind. 
Two fingers crossed over a pea give an impression 
of two peas. The eye corrects the error to the 
judgment, but does not destroy the sensation, any 
more than touch prevents the stick from looking 
crooked in the water, or reason allay the terror that 
some experience at the sight of a spider, or other 
object of superstition. I have waked in the night 
after lying on my arm, and found it wholly dead. 
I could throw it about like the arm of a doll, it 
not having a particle of sense in it. I observed 
that I had no more sense of an arm than if I had 
been born without it. I took hold of it with my 
other hand, and it seemed like a dead thing hang- 
ing about me, and yet without any sense of its 
being attached to me, — causing the oddest impres- 
sion possible, and a very uncomfortable one. So 
that you may have persons with arms feeling as if 
they had none, and others without arms feeling as 
if they had them. When the whole body has lost 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 141 

sensation, as in the trance, the mind seems to be 
free ; to have an immaterial, independent existence. 
Those who are dying often necessarily experience 
this disembodied sense of being. Here it is not 
the sense, but the want of sensation that deceives. 
We are told that our senses never deceive us ; and 
that in the case of the stick appearing crooked in 
the water, or the sun moving, for instance, the 
impression is true enough, but that we form a wrong 
judgment from appearances. In the instance of 
the stick in the water, it is the refracting rays of 
light that deceive us. Here Nature seems to be 
undoubtedly at fault : but it is these deviations 
that are the light of philosophy. Any how, it is 
clear that appearances do deceive us ; whether it 
be the false appearance of a stick in the water, or 
the impression from a person dying causing some 
one at a distance to believe he sees the apparition 
or ghost of the dying person. A number of indi- 
viduals may receive the impression of the dying 
person at the same time, and in different parts of 
the world, just as we have the impression of the 
moon in different places at once. But what is seen 
of the dying person is no more an entity and sepa- 
rate individual, or the individual himself, than the 
appearance of the moon in the water is a separate 
and real object or ghost. You may see the dying 
person, — that is, receive an influence from him ; 
but what you see is not what you believe you see, 
or in the place where you see it, any more than the 
moon is another moon in the water, though the 



142 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

story goes that people once thought so of the moon, 
and brought a rake to fetch it out. A ghost is no 
more an objective reality than I am the image of 
myself in the glass. The dagger which Macbeth 
saw in the air was as much a ghost as the appear- 
ance of Banquo. In our friend Mrs. Crowe's very 
interesting and ingenious book, " The Night Side 
of Nature," she sets out with the assumption that 
Mind is a spiritual entity, separate from the body ; 
and in consequence, a pervading fallacy is intro- 
duced into her reasoning, and it becomes but the 
ghost of reasoning. It is again assumed that in 
the trance the mind goes out of the body to a 
distance, and returns with information, as the dove 
went out from the ark. But such belief is wholly 
assumption, and mere fancy. There is no more 
reason why it should do so in the trance than in 
our ordinary condition of perception. Besides, how 
can a persori^be describing what he is seeing at a 
distance, and be in the distance at the same time ? 
There are cases of two persons in the trance 
conversing with each other at a distance. Can 
they both be in each place at the same time ? 
Many persons, from fancying that mesmerism and 
clairvoyance indicate a spiritual existence, or some- 
thing supernatural, have become converted from 
scepticism to the belief of a future life. Mr. 
Townsend relates a case of the kind in the second 
edition of his work on Mesmerism : but mesmerism 
and clairvoyance are as natural as the instinct of 
animals, and no more wonderful. We must profit 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 143 

by Bacon's admonitions, and not mix up theology 
with science. We must not see ourselves reflected, 
— see the ghosts of ourselves in Nature, and 
imagine we recognize design, or a human origin of 
things. We must follow our great master Bacon, 
and make a stand against the fallacy of natural 
theology, and that exceedingly weak argument of 
Paley's about the watch, which only places the dif- 
ficulty a little farther off, and confounds the idea 
of creation with design or manufacture. To design 
is human. Men design by following the laws 
which constitute nature. From our infinite non* 
existence in the past, and from sleep and other 
states of insensibility, we might infer annihilation 
or change at death, in the same manner as we sup- 
pose with regard to insects and other animals : but 
nothing in nature indicates a future life, unless men 
will take their desires for evidence. Science must 
be wholly cleared from theology, or we shall be 
stopped at the very entrance of the temple by some 
self-constituted authority, or " pampered menial," 
and beaten back, and the simplest truths be ob- 
scured again for ages. 

In the contemplation of high things, too, let us 
not be ashamed of introducing mean instances, 
which may give most light. Socrates began his 
discourse on beauty with a glazed pot, and he was 
laughed at : and we may be laughed at if we try 
to understand Man, and begin with a worm, and 
so show the growth of greater and greater things 
from less ; the more complex from the more simple. 



144 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

There is no difficulty now in investigating and 
understanding the nature of all those appearances 
which are called ghosts or demonology, ■ — remem- 
bering always that knowledge is to be sought in 
the contemplation of things and material laws ; that 
truth is revealed from the analogy of knowledge. 
But the mind must first be cleared of all fictions, 
prejudices, superstitions, fears and longings : and 
this can arise only from a true acquaintance with 
things. There are some minds so beset with error 
and conceits that there is no making any breach 
into them at all, through which to introduce truth 
for the displacement of error : and such minds, I 
fear, must remain choked up in their conceits to 
the end. 

You see our subject is so vast, that I can do little 
more than indicate to you what, in my opinion, is 
the road we should follow, and the kind of obser- 
vations required. Ignorance sees Nature in parts, 
personifies effects, and takes them for causes. It 
creates horrors and spectres, and then startles at its 
own creations. Ignorance imagines gods and devils 
in legions. Knowledge establishes the true rela- 
tions of things in a whole, and has only one God; 
and that, incomprehensible and unknown, and can- 
not admit a Principle of Evil ; much less a personal 
demon, an embodiment of all villany ; but, on the 
contrary, sees good in evil, and the working of 
general laws for the general good ; and sees no 
more sin in a crooked disposition, than in the 
crooked stick in the watar, or in a humpback, or a 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 145 

squint. Ignorance conceives its Will to be free ; — 
a strange arrogance, if it could see it. Knowledge 
recognizes universal law, and that nothing can be 
free or by chance : — no, not even God j * but that 
God is the substance of Law, and origin of all 
things. Science will not permit us to imagine 
beyond this ; for knowledge is but the perception 
of phenomena and their relations ; and a man can 
know no more than he has perceived. Clairvoy- 
ance does not reach beyond phenomena ; nor is it 
in our power to conceive of any thing different 
from what we know. — When we see what we 
call a ghost, it must always be a visible or tangible 
something. I have had a sleeper sitting in an arm- 
chair, and declaring that she saw her soul go from 
her, and pass out at the door in the form of a lamb. 
Now, how the soul could go away, and be in the 
body, talking to me all the while, I cannot con- 
ceive ; and yet by such delusions as these are men 
deceived. It would be hard to believe that Davis, 
the American seer, did really see those strange crea- 
tures he describes as the inhabitants of the different 
planets : and yet we cannot disprove his assertion, 
except by other somnambules who contradict him. 
— A friend in a fever used to see every day a snake 
crawl up the table, and sip from her lemonade. I 

* " This same Mechanic is not only able to make all sorts 
of utensils, but makes every thing also which springs from 
the earth ; and he makes all sorts of animals, himself as well 
as others ; and besides these things, he makes the earth, the 
heaven and the gods, and all things in heaven and in Hades 
under the earth." — Plato, The Republic, X. 

13 



146 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

well remember when a child, seeing a black man 
sitting beside me on the bed. The impression is 
as distinct as if it had only occurred yesterday : 
and even after I had screamed, and the servants 
were in the room, the figure remained, and gradu- 
ally slid away. And I -once, when attending to 
mesmerize a very critical case of a young lady in 
a death-like trance, heard what seemed to be a 
voice from a part of the room where there was no 
one, say distinctly, " Go on, — go on." It was at 
a moment when I hesitated, and thought the pa- 
tient dead. She recovered, and is now well. — A 
friend of mine died ; and in the evening I was 
writing to condole with his child, when, looking 
up, I saw the image of my friend in the air, pro- 
jected some feet from me ; and the impression lasted 
at least a minute. A lady, who is naturally clair- 
voyante, and familiar with visions and pre-visions, 
both false and true, tells me, among other remark- 
able circumstances, that she once saw the vision of 
an arm-chair in her bedroom ; that she went up to 
it, and walked through it, and put her hand through 
it ; and still it remained. When a ghost appears 
on horseback, and in armor, we must conclude the 
horse and armor to have ghosts, as well as men. 
The servant of a friend of mine, at one time, used 
frequently to see, as he drove by, a brewer's dray 
without horses, passing down a particular lane. — 
My patient in the ecstatic dream believed she was 
in heaven, and in the presence of God and Christ, 
and angels. I asked her one day what Christ was 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 147 

doing : she said he was writing at a desk. These 
delusions are in opposite directions ; either the em- 
bodying of an impression, or, on the other hand, 
the disembodying of principles, or refining matter 
away to the minimum of perceptible or conceivable 
existence : or virtues, or principles, or minds, are 
abstracted and embodied again in ideal form. A 
young medical man who disbelieved Mesmerism, 
but was in the habit of taking ether, on one occa- 
sion, when under the influence of ether, was thrown 
by me into a mesmeric sleep, in a few seconds ; and 
he slept soundly for an hour, and answered ques- 
tions that were put to him, exhibiting pure som- 
nambulism. When under the influence of ether, 
this young man always declared himself to be an 
indestructible atom ; and said that an atom was a 
force. He said he was playing at cricket, and that 
the bat and ball, and the persons playing with him, 
were all indestructible atoms. The effect of ether 
on me is the most exquisite tipsiness ; — just a 
complete sense of physical enjoyment ; and this 
dissolving away, till I have no idea but of Mind 
existence * and perfect content ; for I seemed, or 
thought to be, all in all : the " be all and end all " 
of being. — I had been dining at my club one day, 
without taking wine, and whilst observing the 
waiters moving about, amidst the blaze of light, I 
seemed to lose all dependence on my body ; my 
mind seemed to be in the distance in what I saw 
— to fill space — and yet I to occupy no space. 
Drunken people often see double. I can alter the 



148 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

condition of my eyes in looking at an object, so as 
to see two objects ; or I can attend to the impres- 
sions of each eye, and so see two objects in one 
in the same place. Such is the double nature of 
our being. Much has been said of the duality of 
the mind. It is certain that we can and do think 
with one side of the brain at a time. The organ 
on one side may be injured, and the mind go on 
well enough with the one organ, as we do with 
one eye or one lung. I have, in phreno-mesmerism, 
wearied out an organ on one side of the brain, and 
begun the feeling afresh on the opposite organ ; 
just as we rest from one leg upon the other. 
Double consciousness is another affair. I saw a 
very complete case of this under Dr. Wilson, in 
the Middlesex Hospital ; — a natural case : but I 
have had a mesmeric patient, who went into six 
distinct states of memory and consciousness j and 
she recognized me afresh, and in a different man- 
ner, in each. 

But I must not proceed further in this direction. 
There seems to be a similar difference between 
ordinary sight and clairvoyance, as between com- 
mon light and electric light. Did you ever remark 
the marvellous effect of a flash of lightning on a 
dark night, when, during a momentary impression, 
every object is seen with a distinctness quite magi- 
cal ? What you would have to pick out, part by 
part, as it were, in daylight, is presented to you 
instantly, wholly and clearly, by the electric light. 

But I must not forget that there is one sense, if 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 149 

I may so term it, which we have not yet consid- 
ered. I mean the faculty or sense of Time, for 
which, if we term it a sense, there is no external 
apparatus ; and yet it is as clear and real a sense, 
or relation, or whatever else it may be termed, as 
any we possess. I think the idea of time may be 
an exception to the rule, and exist independent of 
any visual impressions. Space and time seem to 
be fundamental to all other ideas, as the place and 
duration of existence. We cannot imagine matter, 
or motion, or mind, to exist without space and 
time. We can conceive the absence of all matter 
and objects ; but it seems necessary that time and 
space must be and exist eternally, though there 
were a total void : and I think it rather absurd of 
Kant to suppose that these fundamental matters, 
space and time, have no existence out of our sensi- 
bility. The faculty of Time is situated in the 
forehead, between Music and Eventuality, the 
organs to which it principally relates. Time, of 
course, can have no outward sense towards objects ; 
but may be said rather to have an inward and 
mysterious working with the whole system. Time 
has its proportions and harmonies, equally with 
colors, sounds and forms. Objects and events exist 
in localities and space, but endure in and through 
time. Thought, being only an effect or phenom- 
enon, as motion is, has locality, but is no thing or 
entity in itself, and consequently occupies no space. 
Bacon thought that all bodies contained a material 
essence or spirit which, when we came to plants 
13* 



150 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and animals, was called soul. " The tangible 
parts of bodies/' he says, "are stupid things ; and 
the spirits do in effect all."* I fully agree with 
Bacon, and do not consider, for instance, the virtue 
of the magnet to be in the solid parts, nor the 
instincts of animals, or thought and feelings of 
Man, to be the doings of the solid brain, but of a 
spiritual condition or body eliminated from, or 
induced by, the action of the brain. How other- 
wise shall ■ we explain the simplest motion ? We 
know that solid things do not absolutely touch. 
If I throw a stone, therefore, I do not push the 
solid part, but influence a spiritual condition which 
carries along the solid thing. But of this on some 
future occasion. 

Thought seems to have a measure or passage in 
time ; but, like light, has no fixedness, and can 
have none. Light seems to be an induced phe- 
nomenon, or motion in a medium or spiritual sub- 
stance ; which, acting on the spirit-body of the 
brain, evolves its correspondent mind-forms, or 
what we term sight : and this supposition opens, I 
think, a great light upon our subject. Events 
relate to time, but do not evolve the idea. It is 
by time that we measure events : as clearly so as 
we measure objects by so much space. How many 
things in the working of the system occur at cer- 
tain determinate periods, or relations of time ! — 
the recurrence of affairs of habit, sleep, &c, for 

* Natural History, Cent. I. sec. 98, 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 151 

example. And how remarkable is the sense of 
time with many somnambulists, who can often tell 
the exact time that a crisis in their illness, or other 
event, will occur, and will wake at the precise 
moment they say they shall ! I remember going 
to see a sleeper wake who had been sleeping three 
days, and had said she should wake precisely at 
six o'clock the third evening. Several of us were 
talking round the bed, paying no particular atten- 
tion to the time, when she rose up in her bed and 
opened her eyes, and instantly the church-clock 
close by struck the hour. I had a patient sleeping 
whom I was obliged to leave, intending fully to 
return within an hour, and I bade my servant look 
into the room and see that the patient remained 
quiet. Immediately after I had left the house, she 
rose from her chair, and, walking to the window, 
and looking after me, she said — "He thinks that 
he will return in an hour — by seven o'clock : but 
he will not return till eleven minutes past nine. I 
shall go to sleep, and get up again to see him 
return." It happened, to my great annoyance, that 
I was detained by some persons I accidentally met, 
and whom I could not see another time ; and, on 
returning, I saw my patient looking out of the win- 
dow, she having just gone there ; and I knocked 
at the door at the precise time she had named — 
eleven minutes past nine, — within half a minute 
by my watch. 

There are some mesmerizers who would explain 
all the wonders of mesmerism by the patients' read- 



152 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

ing their mesmerizer's thoughts ; but I have more 
generally found the thoughts and predictions of 
my patients opposed to my impressions. But men 
have always been apt to generalize from particular 
instances within the sphere of their observation, 
rather than wait for exceptions, which are necessary 
to the discovery of general and true laws. Hence 
the world is full of parts of truth and systems, as 
in Medicine, Homoeopathy, Allopathy, the Water- 
cure, &c. : and some mesmerizers imagine that 
mesmerism is to do every thing, and cure all ills 
that flesh is heir to. I knew a gentleman, a man 
of business, who never carried a watch, and could 
even, when rambling in the country, tell you with 
great exactness the time. I have impressed on 
somnambules, when asleep, that, when awake, at a 
precise moment they shall do or say so and so. 
This will remain latent in their brain. They had 
no consciousness of it when they awoke ; but at 
the precise time they have felt impelled to do or 
say what I had desired them. We can understand 
the thought lying dormant, and being born to them 
as a recollection ; but that it should occur at the 
precise time, without the clock striking, or any 
such sign, is mysterious. But it is much the same 
with many of us in our ordinary sleep. I have 
often gone to bed with the impression that I must 
get up at a particular hour, and have waked at the 
precise time. Time seems to have a near relation 
to that second soul, or unconscious sphere of action 
which we seem to possess, and which appears to 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 153 

have one side towards action and the working of 
the system, and another condition in the intuitive 
sense, or a face towards clear seeing and true 
knowledge. In the intuitive or unconscious con- 
dition, or sphere, or faculty, as we may call it, 
exists the voice, or oracle, or guardian angel, which 
sleepers listen to in the trance. But sometimes 
this attendant spirit becomes a deluding demon, or 
madness; and hence there may have been good 
reason for objecting to witchcraft, and the mis- 
chievous delusions of false prophets. Consciousness 
and reason, after all, seem but as an outward sign 
of an inward principle, which sees as in a glass at 
once, and through phenomena to laws, without the 
process of induction : whereas, by consciousness 
and reasoning we have to use signs, and take up 
Nature by parts and degrees : and after all, can see 
but in part and superficially. We cannot see, like 
the sun, into every corner, but go about like a 
candle moving from place to place, and shall see 
clearly only when we have noted our facts, placed 
them in order, and inferred from them general laws. 
I have heard men say — " We are men of facts, 
and do not believe in clairvoyance.'' 1 I have re- 
plied, — " You are not men of facts — or at least 
not of these facts. You are like machines which 
spin out only one kind of fabric. You are men of 
one language and one country : — prisoners with a 
window to the north, and declare there is no 
moon." 

I am opening my mind to you as it opens to 



154 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

myself — with the facts and the nature of the in- 
quiry, not with any attempt at precise reasoning or 
exact order, which must come afterwards, and grow 
up with years and labor. And if I appear to be 
asserting any thing dogmatically, you must only 
consider it as a form of speech — that I am think- 
ing more of my subject than of manners. If I 
state what is incorrect, time will prune me down, 
and wiser heads will set me right. But I am ex- 
tending this letter without seeing any end to it, and- 
seem yet to have said nothing ; for it is a subject 
the matter of which appears to grow upon us faster 
than we can house it. 

I must now tell you how much interested I am 
in your having once experienced the sense of 
smell and taste. I suppose you could not recog- 
nize any thing unusual at the time that should 
have caused this ; — this marvellous unloosening 
for an hour, of senses which have been chained up 
in you all your life. What, I wonder, could have 
slipped the collar for this once ? And how odd that 
you should have seemed to recognize the smelling 
in the throat ! I wish you could experience it 
again, and tell us more about it. It would be 
difficult, perhaps, to prove absolutely that these 
sensations of yours were the same as we experi- 
ence, and call Smell and Taste : but you can show 
that the relations and peculiarities correspond with 
what we experience ; and this, I think, is sufficient. 
No man can say that the impression he has of blue 
is precisely what another man has : but he could 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 155 

show that the sense has the same relations, and 
place in a scale ; and this is all, I think, that is 
requisite. We can best know snch matters by their 
relations and correspondence. In the case of my 
blind friend, it has been said that, she never having 
seen, and I never having been blind, there can be 
no common ground of comparison between ns. To 
this objection I reply, that the question is of her 
seeing ; and if she has seen, as she asserts, there is 
the common ground of comparison ; and the result 
of the comparison will show the fact, and whether 
the ground of evidence does exist or not : and this 
is the matter at issue. The only difference is, that 
we do not see the same object at the same time ; 
which is of no consequence. Another objection 
urged is, that she ought not to use arbitrary terms 
— such as blue, green, &c. : but say sky-color, and 
grass-color. Bat why so? If she sees in her sleep 
as we see when awake, she is in the same position 
in regard to terms as ourselves. She would see 
the color of the sky, and know that it is called 
blue : and, therefore, would use the terms as we 
use them. The proof of her clairvoyance is, I 
think, unexceptionable ; but I will inform you of 
any further particulars I may elicit. This is a case 
in which I should not readily trust another person's 
caution and questionings : and, therefore, do not 
expect assent to what is convincing to me. I 
merely place the fact on record as a suggestive 
matter, which may help inquiry, and call forth ob- 
servation in similar instances. With regard to your 



150 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

sense in the mesmeric sleep, of matter resolving 
itself into forces, it is not possible, you say, to 
explain it j and I, of course, cannot comprehend it. 
So we must pause till some key to the matter is 
invented, and we hear what others, in a similar, or 
a higher state, say to it. In the mean time, it is 
exceedingly interesting to contemplate ; only, of 
course, we must regard the fact by the side of other 
facts, and consider whether it is not likely to be a 
delusion of the senses ; or rather a delusion of the 
mind when the senses are at rest, as in the case, we 
will say, of the gentleman who thought himself an 
indestructible atom, and that the cricket-bats and 
balls were all indestructible atoms ; or, when ether- 
ized myself, I felt all nature dissolved away, 
leaving only Mind. But I need not suggest such 
comparisons to you, only that you, as a matter of 
course, will find it difficult to abstract yourself, and 
criticise your own case as you would one in which 
you were only a looker-on. This is a subject of 
such difficulty and importance that even angels 
would seek to tread through its imagery with 
caution. But I am not, I hope, one of those ill 
discoverers who think there is no land, because 
there is nothing visible but sea; and, therefore, 
I rest upon the matter with hope. 

You remember Bacon says that " Plato supposed 
forms were the true objects of knowledge, but lost 
the real fruit of his opinions by considering of forms 
as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not con- 
fined and determined by matter : and so, turning 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES.. 157 

his opinions upon theology, wherewith all his nat- 
ural philosophy is infected."* We know that 
nature presents to us a system of forces ; and Far- 
aday, I believe, conceives matter to be nothing but 
a system of forces : but I cannot conceive of force 
as an abstract from matter, or being matter. But 
the question is, perhaps, beyond all ordinary powers 
of sense and reasoning. I once conceived of matter 
as a system of forces : but I now inquire " What is 
force ? " and require an origin or cause of force ; 
and this brings me to where I set out ; — to two 
things ; matter, and its forces or properties. — But 
of course it is absurd for me to be guessing what 
you may have seen or imagined, when you say it 
is not possible to convey the notion, from the 
prison-house, to ears of flesh and blood ; from the 
intuitive chamber, to ideas founded upon common 
daylight experience. 

I have seen my blind friend again, and had a 
long conversation with her, on the nature of the 
faculty she believes that she possesses, of seeing in 
her sleep. She says that she has seen in this way 
from childhood ; that she constantly dreams, and 
always sees in her dream ; and that, whether she 
has a sense of what is then in existence, or a pre- 
vision of what is to happen, or her dream is a mere 
wandering of the fancy, — in each case she has the 
sense of sight. She believes it to be the same 



* Advancement of Learning, Book II. 

14 



158 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

sense that we have, because it answers to it in 
every respect. And to me it appears, that it is only 
by such correspondence that we can identity her 
experience as the same with our own. That the 
faculty of sight is active in the brain, is proved by 
her being able to distinguish daylight from dark- 
ness : in the same way that you, who want the 
sense of taste, recognize bitter and acid things, but 
not flavors ; and as we are able to do with our eyes 
closed. The faculties relating to sight are shown 
in full development in her forehead ; and in this 
she is in marked contrast to her sisters ; one of 
whom, I find, could once, in childhood, see. 

'In her clairvoyant dreams, I do not find that 
special attention has been paid to note the appear- 
ance of any colors she could not have anticipated. 
Proof exists, at present, only as to the general fact. 
For instance, the clergyman of the parish had re- 
tired for some time from his living, and gone into 
Devonshire, to live near to his son-in-law ; two 
hundred miles from my blind friend's residence. 
She dreamed one Sunday morning in her second 
sleep, that she saw this clergyman preaching in the 
pulpit of his son-in-law's church ; when he sud- 
denly fell down, and some gentlemen came out of 
their pews, and carried him into the vestry, not 
knowing for some time if he were dead, or in a fit. 
She related the dream in the morning, and it 
made a strong impression on her family. On Tues- 
day, some friends had letters, giving an account of 
this clergyman falling' in the pulpit, on that Sun- 



FACTS ABOUT THE SENSES. 159 

day after the dream, and being carried out, and 
their not knowing whether he was dead, or only in 
a fit. It was a fit, and he recovered. The whole 
circumstances accorded precisely with the dream. 
The clergyman had never been subject to fits. 
We have therefore evidence, clear enough, of this 
lady's clairvoyant power, and also that the faculty 
of sight exists, from the perception of the distinc- 
tion between day and night, and the brain being 
fully developed. 

This slight perception of light and dark would 
enable her to recognize an extension of the same, 
and variations in the same, and enable her the 
better to know that what she expressed was indeed 
sight. She says that the impression she has of a 
room and of the furniture it contains, by touching 
round here and there, and by putting the bits of 
feeling together, is very different from the complete 
sense of the whole perceived at once throughout, 
with the distinctions of form and color in all their 
variety, as described by us : and that the colors are 
quite distinct from mere space or surface, and from 
the sense of roughness and smoothness. — By the 
way, the fact, that we can cause the sense of color, 
by scratching on the surface, may be a reason why 
some blind persons, as it is said, can discover colors 
by the feel of the surface ; each color probably in- 
dicating a special character of surface. Thus, from 
an exquisite sense of touch, the sense of color may 
be evolved, or at least, the distinctions recognized. 
A person may have a ki.uwledge of differences, 



160 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and what those differences indicate, without see- 
ing : so that it seems to me that clairvoyance, and 
particularly prevoyance, would be no proof of sight ; 
but only of a knowledge of a fact, present or to 
come, and of a sense of distinctions. Still the 
seeing would have to be made out by analysis, and 
in the way in which I have analyzed the matter 
with my friend, in regarding colors, in relation to 
colors, in relation to sounds and other sensations, in 
relation to space and surface, and by the impression 
on the feelings. 

This lady says, that some combinations of colors 
are very disagreeable to her, though agreeable to 
others, and she chooses her own dresses accordingly. 
I will set her, however, to make more careful obser- 
vations on her dreams and visions. — Such cases 
cause us to reflect on the nature of the different 
spheres of sight, and of the different characters of 
light, and conditions of sight. The blue sky that 
I see with my eyes open, and the sense of the blue 
that I have when I close my eyes, are very differ- 
ent, and yet the same. The clairvoyant sight seems 
again distinct. I have occasionally, for a very 
short time, — a minute perhaps, — had a clear and 
intense sight of objects before me, when the indi- 
viduality and the parts seemed one : and I have 
had a similar sense in a morning dream, and after- 
wards painted the view I have seen, without having 
any difficulty in remembering a single tint or form. 
It was that clear and complete sight experienced 
under a flash of lightning. 



RAISING QUESTIONS. 161 

If my friend sees at all, whether in sleep or 
awake, with her eyes or without them, she would 
soon learn the name of colors, as well as most of 
us can name them ; which is very imperfectly. I 
do not see that there would be any difficulty in 
that. — This case is interesting, if only to make 
us reflect on the nature of such an inquiry, — the 
nature of seeing, and of the different kinds of light 
and sight, and the relation which sight bears to im- 
pressions from the other senses, and to the feelings ; 
— all bearing in Cosmical inquiry. 



XV. 

RAISING QUESTIONS. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

There is so much in your last letter, that it has 
been longer than usual under my hand. 

Thank you for your detail of facts and evidence 
as to the blind lady's case. I should still like 
more, if you can obtain them ; for I can conceive 
of nothing more momentous. 

As for the resolution of Matter into forces, it 
does not, to my mind, convey any notion of imma- 
terial existence. I observe you use the word spirit, 
and spiritual forces, in regard to the virtues of the 
magnet, and the mutual operation of billiard balls. 
14* 



162 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

I do not object to the word, understanding as I do, 
that by " spiritual " you do not mean " immaterial : " 
but I should not have ventured to use the word to 
you. I suppose the German term, " Nerve-spirit " 
is of the same class. I wish we had a term ; as 
people in general mean by " spiritual " that which 
is not matter, and which is in antagonism with it. 
I do not know what term we have but " force." — 
Here we find ourselves in the dim regions where 
Berkeley and Kant, and so many more, have sat 
down and tried to make out what they saw, with* 
such varying results. When Bacon says that " the 
tangible parts of bodies are stupid things, and the 
spirits do, in effect, all ; " and when you agree with 
him, and speak of "a spiritual condition or body 
eliminated from, or induced by, the action of the 
brain ; " and when again, we find such nice dis- 
tinctions necessary, but so difficult to make, be- 
tween impressions of objective but invisible exist- 
ences, like space and time, and such as receive 
reality only by their junction with the human 
sense, as light and sound (to become sight and 
hearing), — we can have great sympathy with 
Berkeley in his conviction, that the human con- 
sciousness is all ; and with Kant, in his doctrine, 
that space and time are not objective realities, but 
conditions of human ideas : and with the common 
world in the ordinary notion of a soul, capable of 
existence, independently of the body. Without 
agreeing with any of them, we see how we ap- 
proach near enough to understand well how the} 
came by their view of these things. 



RAISING QUESTIONS. 163 

I suppose Berkeley would disallow your division 
of our perceptions, saying that light and sound 
differ from what are considered more unquestion- 
ably objective realities, — as a tree or a leaden 
weight, — only by their appealing to one sense 
instead of to several, while he denies the instrumen- 
tality of any and all of our senses and perceptive 
powers of every kind. I agree with you as to the 
distinction, in regard to animal sight and hearing ; 
but I should like to know what you consider light 
to be, when (animal life being, or supposed to be, 
absent) it affects the growth of plants j and what 
you take sound to be, when, in an uninhabited 
place, it keeps the air from stagnating. Is it by 
forces that light and sound thus operate ? and do 
they remain the same forces, or originate new ones, 
when they impinge on the eye and ear, or the cor- 
responding organs of the brain? — And, do you 
conclude upon an objective reality, in an always 
equal degree, as to certainty, when you find a cor- 
responding organ in the brain ? And, if so, where 
would you draw the line of classification between 
the agents (whatever they may be) that appeal to 
the organs of sight and hearing singly, and those 
that address themselves at once to the muscular 
sense, the sense of form, of weight, and of sight ; 
as a leaden weight ? 

I should think there are cases in plenty to show 
that you are right as to the interior sense of the 
passage of time. Most of us can wake at any 
hour we please to impress ourselves with ; and I 



164 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

suppose most persons can tell pretty nearly what 
time it is, day or night, if they trust to their 
instinct. I once could, within five minutes, and 
can now, when I do not stop to think. But people 
may say that this is practice with most of us. 
What do they make of the well-known fact of the 
idiot boy who had got a habit of imitating the 
striking of the church clock, and who continued 
the practice, absolutely unerringly, when removed 
to a home where there was no clock or watch 
within hearing or reach? He would do it when 
left alone, without being spoken to for hours to- 
gether. This story is related (secondarily) ill 
"Percival's Instructions : " and a prodigious puzzle 
it was to me in my childhood. 

While we are about this matter of the senses, do 
you think the lightning flash reveals more than the 
daylight glance ? I dare say you are right ; but 1 
am not quite sure. I fancy the sudden presenti- 
ment may be the thing. I fancy that crossing a 
ridge, and instantly seeing a wide champaign 
below, is much like it. I doubt whether my per- 
ception of the view from the Mountain House (on 
the Hudson), and of Domo D'Ossola in descending 
the Simplon, was not as vivid as when, the other 
night, as I was in the porch, the lightning disclosed 
every cranny of the mountains, and every distinct 
mass of the trees, and then left all blank. 

As for the one occasion of smelling, I was not 
well, — headachy, and, I suppose, nervous. In 
Wordsworth's case (vide " Southey's Life," i. 63), 



RAISING QUESTIONS. 165 

there seems to have been no peculiar antecedent 
state. 

Let me tell you a curious thing which happened 
twice to me — the being unable, by any effort, to 
see a conspicuous object, directly before my eyes : 
I suppose, because I must have had a wrong notion 
of what I was to see. When I was near seven 
years old, I was taken to Tynemouth, in a passion 
of delight, because I was to see the sea. Aunt 
Margaret took me, and an older and a younger one, 
to the haven. There, when standing on the bank, 
we were expected to exclaim about the sea, which 
flowed in up to the foot of the bank, directly before 
our eyes. The other two children were delighted ; 
but I could not see it. When questioned, I was 
obliged to say so ; and I said it with shame and 
reluctance. I well remember the misery. I believe 
it was thought affectation, like my indifference to 
scents. We were led down the bank, which was 
steep, and difficult for children. Not till the gentle 
waves were at my very toes did I see the sea at 
all ; and then it gave me a start, and a painful 
feeling of being a sort of idiot not to have seen it 
before. The revelation, at last, was very like that 
by a lightning flash. It may be mentioned that 
my impression of my only previous sight of the 
sea was of something quite different. I was then 
under three years old, — not strong on my feet, — 
and my father led me along the old Yarmouth 
jetty, which was full of holes, through which I 
saw the swaying waters below, and was frightened, 



166 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

— -as I well remember. I may have been occupied 
with this idea on the second occasion. The other 
anecdote is yet more odd. When the great comet 
of 1811 appeared, I was nine years old. Night 
after night that autumn, the whole family went up 
to the long range of windows in my father's ware- 
house to see the comet. I was obliged to go with 
them ; but I never once saw it ! My heart used 
to swell with disappointment and mortification. 
No effort was wanting on my part ; and parents, 
brothers and sisters used to point and say, — " Why, 
there ! — why, it is as large as a saucer ! You 
might as well say you cannot see the moon." I 
could not help it. I never saw it ; and I have not 
got over it yet. The only thing I can suppose is, 
that I must have been looking for something wholly 
different ; and that no straining of the eyes avails 
if the mind is occupied with another image. 

Yes, — I fainted one day from having, in a freak, 
put a musical snuff-box on my head. The deli- 
cious precision of the music, and the revival of the 
old clearness, after the muffled piece of confusion 
that instrumental music had been to me for some 
years, overcame me in a second of time. I am 
sure I heard that performance quite as well as any 
body could through the ear : and I have since 
clapped on my head every musical snuff-box I 
could lay hands on. You may like to know the 
following : — When I had become just deaf enough 
to have difficulty in catching the pitch of a piece of 
music, in the concert-room we attended, which had 



RAISING QUESTIONS. 167 

benches, with a long, wooden rail to lean against, I 
could always get right by pressing my shoulder- 
blades against that rail : only, the pitch was always 
a third below. Finding this with music which I 
was familiar with, I soon got to allow for it always, 
and so did very well for the time. As the deafness 
increased, I found all bass sounds lose their smooth- 
ness, and come in pulses, beating upon the ear, and 
vibrating through the pit of the stomach, while, as 
yet, higher sounds were as formerly. And even 
now. treble voices are smooth, as far as I hear 
them, while confused ; and the bass are lost. Before 
I quite left off playing the piano, I always took the 
treble part in duets, leaving it to my partner to fit 
the bass to it, without any cognizance of mine. 

Now, do tell me, if it is a thing which can be 
explained, or on which it is possible to have any 
clear ideas, — how a dying person, or the event of 
his dying, acts upon persons at a distance. I am 
in no way disposed to question the fact of such 
'• apparitions," or ghosts, as they are called ; but, 
while I am obliged to reject the customary notions, 
theological and philosophical, about these phenom- 
ena, I am unprepared with any solution. I am 
thankful to say that I need not trouble you to 
answer, in me, the popular notions about a spiritual 
state ; but you must address yourself to an entire 
ignorance of the conditions under which such 
perceptions occur. I could tell you curious stories 
of such apparitions : — but so can every body ; and 
really we want no more evidence, — at least, you 
and I do not. 



168 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

Tell me, too, how you conceive that our con- 
sciousness of continued identity is accounted for, 
while our whole frame (every organ of the brain 
among the rest), is incessantly undergoing waste 
and renewal. And is not the grand feature of 
Death the cessation of this consciousness of con- 
tinued identity ? And is not this enough to sever 
the change of Death widely from every other 
change of structure we undergo, so that they can- 
not be likened but by a kind of violence ? As to 
the fallacy of all arguments for a conscious exist- 
ence after death, I agree with you entirely. I 
think that, not only is the desire taken for evi- 
dence, but the desire itself is a factitious thing ; 
that many (and this I know) do not desire it at 
all ; and that others never would, if it were not 
forced upon them from the hour of the awakening 
of the understanding. The argument of Compen- 
sation, by means of a future life, appears to me as 
puerile and unphilosophical as the Design argument 
in regard to " Creation," or the existence of things. 
Pray tell me, too, whether, in this last letter, you 
do not, in speaking of God, use merely another 
name for law ? We know nothing beyond law, 
do we ? And when you speak of God as the origin 
of all things, what is it that you mean ? Do we 
know any thing of origin? — that it is possible? 
Is it conceivable to you that there was ever Noth- 
ing ? — and that Something came of it? I know 
how we get out of our depth in speaking of these 
things ; but I should like to be aware where, ex- 
actly, you think our knowledge stops. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 169 



XVI. 

BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. — IN- 
FERENCES AND DREAMS. — ASSOCIATION OF 
IDEAS. 

H. G. A. to H. M. 

I will endeavor to reply to this last letter of 
yours, and the difficult questions you propose, as 
well as my poor thoughts will aid me. With regard 
to the blind lady's case, I will try to obtain for you 
more precise details. The matter has opened an 
interesting train of reflections as to the possibility 
of such an experience, and to the nature of sight. 
It will lead us to consider the distinction between 
the first, — the immediate sense impression of ob- 
jects, and the after or image impression, — the 
paintings or shadowed drawings in the mind when 
the sense is closed. We shall consider, likewise, 
the circumstances under which these images are 
projected, as it were, to appear like the real or first 
impressions, and shall also have to consider whether 
there be any distinction between our ordinary sense 
impressions and the clairvoyant impressions, and 
the different characters of those clairvoyant recogni- 
tions ; and, again, between the mere dream and 
true vision, and what is the distinction between the 
sense the clairvoyant has, in its clearest state, of 
appearances existing at the time, and its picture 
of what has not yet occurred (that which we term 
15 



170 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

pre-vision), and whether these clairvoyant recogni- 
tions, in either case, occur independently of the 
perceptive organs which we consider necessary to 
ordinary sight. I have not advanced far enough at 
present to give you these requisite definitions ; but 
it is something attained, perhaps, to be aware of the 
distinctions fundamental to the inquiry. 

The foresight of what has not yet occurred is at 
present a matter quite incomprehensible : and many 
will say impossible, who are in the habit of measur- 
ing truth by their own ignorance and limited reason. 
We who know * that such things are, are content to 
receive the fact as it is, and wait for the explanation. 
I fully agree with you as to the necessity of defining 
terms. I have remarked upon this, I think, in a 
former letter. In my opinion, there are too many 
terms signifying the same thing, and too many 
distinct conditions included under one term. For 
instance, force, virtue, power, principle, property, 
spirit, soul, &c, are used to signify the active char- 
acter or quality of a body ; and yet what distinct 
matters are included under the term virtue, spirit, 
soul, force ! The difficulty of the matter has caused 
a confusion of terms ; and some of these are, of 
course, absurd enough : such as immaterial sub- 
stance, incorporeal body, or free will : and the 
confusion of terms again enslaves the understand- 
ing, " and throws every thing into confusion, and 
leads mankind into vain and innumerable contro- 

* Appendix I. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 171 

versies and fallacies." I see no method of clearing 
the way but by closer observation of nature, and 
by more precise definitions of all true characteristics 
and distinctions. Bacon says, the motions corporeal 
in bodies, — that is, the effects which pass between 
the spirit and the tangible parts, — are not handled, 
" but they are put off by the names of virtues, and 
natures, and actions, and passions, and such other 
logical words." Bacon speaks very positively with 
regard to a spiritual nature in things, and says, " It 
is not a question of words, but infinitely material in 
nature." " For spirits are nothing else but a natural 
body, rarefied to a proportion, and included in the 
tangible parts of bodies, as in an integument." * It 
is in this sense that I have used the term Spirit, 
to express a rare and subtle condition of matter. 
Hobbes uses the term Spirit as the contrary distinc- 
tion to phantasm. 

I have just seen the translation of Reichenbach's 
" Physico-physiological Researches, in relation to 
Vital Force," with notes by Dr. Ashburner. 
Reichenbach speaks of the immaterial essence of 
light, for which speech Dr. Ashburner calls him to 
account, and declares for matter only. " It is the 
atheist," he says, "who believes in nothing." I 
confess that I can as little understand Dr. A.'s 
meaning about the atheist believing in nothing as 
Baron Reichenbach's, about an immaterial essence 
of light. But Reichenbach is a clear-headed man, 

* Natural History, Cent. I. sec. 98. 



172 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and I dare say he is right enough in his meaning ; 
but, as you ask about the nature of Light, I wish 
that his term had been defined. 

Let us consider what Bacon thought about Mat- 
ter, which he declares " the Cause of causes,* itself 
without a cause." He says,f — "For a true 
philosopher will dissect, not sever nature, (for they 
who will not dissect must pull her asunder,) and the 
prime matter is to be laid down, joined with the 
primitive form, as also with the first principle of 
motion, as it is found. For the abstraction of 
motion has also given rise to innumerable devices J 
concerning spirits, — life and the like, — as if there 
were not laid a sufficient ground for them through 
Matter and Form, but they depended on their own 
peculiar elements. But these three are not to be 
separated, but only distinguished ; and matter is to 
be treated (whatever it be) in regard of its adorn- 
ment, appendages, and form, as that all kind of 
influence, essence, action, and natural motion may 
appear to be its emanation and consequence. Nor 
need we fear that, from this, inquiry should stag- 
nate, or that variety which we perceive, should 
become incapable of explanation." How earnestly 
Bacon admonishes us at every turn to cast away all 
theological notions whatsoever from our philo- 
sophical inquiries ! — that it must be constantly in 
the philosopher's thoughts that Cupid (who repre- 
sents the elements of things, or fundamental nature) 

* Appendix K. f De Cupidine. £ Appendix L. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 173 

is without parents, lest, perchance, his understanding 
turn aside to empty questions ; because, in universal 
perceptions of this kind, the human mind becomes 
diffusive, and departs from the right use of itself, 
and of its objects; and, whilst it tends towards 
things more distant, falls back upon those that are 
nearer to final causes and its own nature, which is 
but a result in universal nature. Again, he says,* — 
" Almost all the ancients — Empedocles, Anaxagoras, 
Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, — though dis- 
agreeing in other respects upon the prime matter, 
joined in this, — that they held an active matter 
with a form, both arranging its own form, and 
having within itself the principle of motion. Nor 
can any one think otherwise, without leaving expe- 
rience altogether. All these, then, submitted their 
minds to nature." And again, he says, — " But 
whilst the dicta of Aristotle and Plato are celebrated 
with applause and professional ostentation in the 
schools, the philosophy of Democritus was in great 
repute among the wiser sort, and those who more 
closely gave themselves to the depth and silence 
of contemplation." 

I have quoted these passages, because I think 
the best way towards mending our terms, or agree- 
ing on their signification, is to endeavor to clear 
our understandings from the beginning ; and this 
trinity in unity described by Bacon, seems to be a 
sound commencement ; Matter, Form, and the 



* De Cupidine. 

15* 



174 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

principle of Motion, or the power or mind of Nature, 
if such expressions be preferred, as more nearly 
indicating the varied form and laws of Nature. As 
a man sees himself reflected in a stream, so Nature, 
it may be said, sees herself in man's mind ; but 
only as a form of her external condition : and by 
glimpses theologians have supposed man to be su- 
perior and independent of the laws of Nature ; 
whereas, he is but the minister and interpreter of 
the law, to which he is himself subject. He is 
but a part and parcel of the whole. A flint stone 
might become a mirror, in which a philosopher 
could see himself: but under new circumstances, 
this Proteus matter, — this very mirror which had 
been a flint stone, — might dissolve away, and re- 
form into a philosopher : and, in place of the 
reflecting mirror, we should have, gradually evolved 
from the principle of motion, the phenomena of 
mind. All is change, — change eternal. Motion 
is fundamental to the constitution of nature ; and 
the forms of Matter, and the condition of Mind 
(which is one form of the properties of matter), 
are all passing phenomena, fleeting and varying as 
the wind ; equally determined by law, — bound 
down by the adamantine chain of Necessity. For 
it is the extremest folly to imagine absolute free- 
dom, or that there is any inertness in matter, or 
chance- work in nature, or in mind, which is the 
reflection or interaction of nature. There is noth- 
ing stable but what we conceive to be fundamental 
to all these forms and changes, but which is beyond 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 175 

sense impressions. We assume a something and a 
principle, because the form of mind requires it, as 
a thing essential, though unknown : and it is this 
which I wrongly enough perhaps termed God. It 
is that which the ancients so prettily fabled as 
Cupid j meaning the cause of things, itself without 
a cause. " It is sui generis, and admits of no defi- 
nition drawn from the perception, and is to be taken 
just as it is found, and not to be judged of from 
any preconceived idea." But men are not satisfied 
with a mystery, or content to suspend their judg- 
ment. In the conceit of their ignorance, they 
anticipate nature, and prejudge every novelty. 
Even the noblest work of Man, the Novum Or- 
ganon, was ridiculed when it appeared, notwith- 
standing the great repute and high position of the 
Chancellor. — Hence the history of Man is a 
history* of the persecutions of the world's bene- 
factors — of the bravest, the best, and the wisest 
men. All this is caused by absurd creeds, and the 
ignorant clamor of the interested, crying, " Great 
is Diana of the Ephesians." Not being content to 
suppose eternal and inherent principles and laws of 
nature, evolving the sequence of events, and all the 
changes and forms of being, they jump the mystery, 
and suppose a beginning in time, and a creation ; 
— a something from nothing, and confounding 
sequence with cause, and manufacture with crea- 
tion, suppose a Creator after the likeness of Man : 
in fact, ease themselves of a difficulty, by imagin- 

* Appendix M. 



176 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

ing an impossibility. Surely, if the inhabitants of 
some of the myriad worlds, which shine in space 
around us, could look upon us (and perhaps some 
of them can), they must wonder at our follies and 
presumption. It is thought fine logic, to suppose 
an extra cause of fundamental nature : and yet the 
same logic does not lead men to the necessity of a 
cause for this cause, ad infinitum. If you imagine 
an extra cause, and stop there, what are you but an 
Atheist at one remove ? And believing that three 
separate persons are one person, and that the Son 
is the Father, and that the cause reconciled itself 
to itself, to the doings of that child it had itself 
created and found perfect, by destroying itself cer- 
tainly does not make the logic more perfect, or 
deter a reasonable man from considering the origin 
of opinions, and of the various theologies and 
creeds by which men are possessed. It is very 
certain that theologians # have failed to reform the 
world. All our hopes now lie in a true understand- 
ing and philosophy of man's nature, when all the- 
ologies will be found to be the offspring principally 
of abnormal conditions or disease. Men once 
believed, and I suppose savages do now believe, 
that the earth was a flat plane, and the sun and 
stars were lights placed on the blue arch of heaven, 
for this world's use : but would they have supposed 
the God of the universe to be taking so much 
special care of Man as of a few chosen people, on 
this little speck of earth, if they had conceived the 

* Appendix N. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 177 

infinite, and the infinite worlds in space, or known 
that Herschel would see light from worlds by his 
glass, that had taken two millions of years in 
reaching this earth ? Let us write down million 
upon million, and for a whole long lifetime, and 
strain imagination to its extremest limit, and we 
shall not have nibbled away a noticeable bit out 
of the immeasurable, inconceivable, infinite. The 
sense of our arrogance might well cause us to 
fall down in shame before the contemplation of the 
solemn, I had almost said the terrible infinite. Our 
theologies partake necessarily of the presumption 
and contracted notions of a village gossip, or of the 
man who thinks himself specially elected for 
grace and heaven. Philosophy finds no God in 
nature ; no personal being or creator, nor sees the 
want of any : nor has a God revealed himself mi- 
raculously ; for the idea is in the mind of most 
savage nations, because under like influences like 
effects will occur. The human mind, wherever 
placed under similar circumstances of ignorance, 
will form similar conceptions, and have similar 
longings and superstitions. But that men in a 
thousand opposing creeds * should be enslaved by 
the dreams of the savage, and the ignorant super- 
stitions of an infant state of the world, only shows 
that the philosophy of Man is but just beginning, and 
has yet to struggle through an entangled jungle of 
prejudices into life. Men still worship idols of one 
shape or another ; an insect, or bird, or quadruped, 

* Appendix O. 



178 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

or an ideal image of themselves, a fiend, a warrior, 
or a thing to be flattered and persuaded, like a poor, 
vain, human creature. "It were better," says 
Bacon, " to have no opinion of God at all, than 
such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the 
one is unbelief, the other is contumely : and cer- 
tainly superstition is the reproach of the deity. 
Plutarch saith well to that purpose : ' Surely I had 
rather a great deal men should say there was no 
such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should 
say that there was one Plutarch that would eat 
his children as soon as they were born.' "* Now, 
to create a being to fall, and all other generations 
to sufTer as on account of this error (for sin it could 
not be), and to predestine what need not have been 
created, to eternal damnation, does not show very 
unlike a creature that would devour its own chi_- 
dren as soon as they were born. If men will make 
a fable for that which is beyond our comprehen- 
sion, let the poetry be sublime, and worthy of the 
subject. Let the God be an ideal abstract of all 
that is unim passioned, noble, and elevating : and 
above all, let it be a mystery ; not a thing carved in 
stone, or shaped out in blood and bone ; a thing of 
human passions and imperfections, fabricating that 
which it afterwards finds imperfect, and repenting 
of having made it. But why go on with all the 
details of this amazing belief: a belief, not of a 
few miserable savages, but the belief of civilized 
Europe ? Then, be deferential and humble as you 

* Essays, XVII., of Superstition. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 179 

may, what can you conclude, but, with Bacon, that 
a universal insanity reigns in men's minds ? It is 
quite impossible that a mind like Bacon's, having 
any belief in, or respect for, the Christian dogmas, 
could have placed the matter in such a ridiculous 
light as he has done in the Christian Paradoxes ; 
and it seems equally vain to argue that they were 
not his writings, or done only as an exercise of his 
wit. The Confession of Faith seems only a show- 
ing of what the faith of a believing Christian 
should be, and in the least objectionable form. 
There is yet very little daylight of intelligence in 
the world. Man's mind is twisted into a thousand 
fantastic shapes, and paralyzed by system and 
authority. Bacon well knew that he must first 
try with a new broom to sweep a passage way for 
reason to act in. He also knew the peril he was in, 
and was forced to degrade himself and the truth be- 
neath a mask. What has been thought to be divine, 
and prophecy, and miracle,* and inspiration, &c, 
and upon which phenomena all the various prominent 
faiths have been founded, we now know to be 
doings of Nature, — effects of abnormal conditions 

* " How many things do we call miracle and contrary to Na- 
ture ! This is done by every nation, and by every man, accord- 
ing to the proportion of his ignorance. How many occult prop- 
erties and quintescences do we daily discover ! For, for us to go 
' according to nature ' is no more but to go ■ according to our 
understanding,' as far as that is able to follow, and as far as we 
are able to see into it. All beyond that is, forsooth, monstrous 
and irregular." — Montaigne. 

" Miracles appear to be so, according to our ignorance of 
nature, and not according to the essence of matter.'' — Ibid. 



J 80 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of Man. Prophecy, clairvoyance, healing by touch,* 
visions, dreams, revelations, and the delusion of 
believing themselves divinely inspired, are now- 
known to be simple matters in nature, which may 
be induced at will, and experimented upon at our 
firesides, here in London, — (climate and other 
circumstances permitting) — as well as in the " holy 
land." In nature there can be no favoritism or 
predestination, though all things be fated as being 
according to law ; law which rules impartially, 
though individuals suffer cruel extremities from 
necessity ; all evil, however, having some tendency 
towards universal good, as manure and decaying 
matter are the substance essential to regeneration 
and the golden harvest. But men fancy that they 
recognize the doings of a mind like their own in 
nature, instead of perceiving that they are of a 
form cast from nature, and a response to the surface, 
or phenomenal form of things without. Thus de- 
luding themselves, they wander after final causes, 
and by an inverted reason see their own image in 
nature, and imagine design and a designer, — crea- 
tion and a creator ; as if the laws of matter were 
not fundamental, and sufficient in themselves, and 
design were not human, and simply an imitation ; 
or, as Bacon designates it, "a memory with an. 
application." To call nature's doings, and the 
fitness and form of things, design, is absurd. Man 
designs ; Nature is. But how little the real spirit 
of Bacon's philosophy, and the aim of his labors, 

* Appendix P. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 181 

have yet influenced the world ! Men are still writing 
Christian Geology, and Christian Phrenology ; and, 
1 suppose, Mohammedan Phrenology, and Jewish 
Phrenology : and the facts of Mesmerism are per- 
verted to suit every one's theological opinions ; — to 
support a belief in ghosts, or in miracles, or in the 
Thirty-nine Articles. Some are running after new 
revelations ; others denouncing all new revelations, 
and clinging to old ones. The Rev. G. Sanby's 
interesting work on " Mesmerism and its Oppo- 
nents," in which he endeavors to support miracles* 
by limiting Christ's natural powers and insight, is 
an instance. Men do not perceive that the argu- 
ments which tell against a new revelation tell with 
equal force against the old. 

Sir Charles Bell set about proving a design and a 
designer from the hand. Another gentleman would 
infer a God from an organ in the brain. Lord 
Brougham holds out Paley, and the logic of the 
watch story, and declares that mind does not age 
with the body, but is independent of it ; all which 
is most fanciful, and wholly fallacious. You 
remember that De Maistre, a Roman Catholic writer 
of celebrity, has attacked Bacon's philosophy in 
two goodly volumes, as Materialism and Atheism. 
Bacon has told us how necessary it was to use 
disguise : and I fear this masking was carried 
further than was absolutely necessary for his own 
security, and for engaging a hearing f for his own 
philosophy. Be this as it may, De Maistre has torn 

* Appendix Q. f Appendix R. 

16 



182 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

off the disguise ; and while endeavoring to injure 
Bacon's reputation, and do a service to the 
Church, has done the best thing he could have 
done for philosophy : and only what, doubtless, 
Bacon anticipated when he said that he had held 
up a light in the obscurity of philosophy which 
would be seen centuries after he was dead. He 
laments that he cannot " dismiss all art and circum- 
stance, and exhibit the matter naked to us, that we 
might be enabled to use our judgment. Thinkest 
thou," he says, " that when all the accesses and 
motions of all minds are besieged and obstructed 
by the obscurest Idols, deeply rooted and branded 
in, the sincere and polished areas present themselves 
in the true and native rays of things : but as the 
delirium of phrenetics is subdued by art and inge- 
nuity, but by force and contention raised to fury : 
so, in this universal insanity, we must use modera- 
tion." When a boy at college, he was impressed 
with what he repeats when he was Chancellor. " In 
the Universities," he says, " they learn nothing but 
to believe : first, to believe that others know that 
which they know not : and after, themselves know 
that which they know not. They are like a be- 
calmed ship : they never move but by the wind of 
other men's breath, and have no oars of their own 
to steer withal." He speaks of the fictions of those 
who have not feared to deduce and confirm the 
truth of the Christian religion by the principle and 
authority of philosophers. " In short," he says, 
"you may find all access to any species of phi- 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 183 

losophy, however pure, intercepted by the ignorance 
of divines." 

Bacon seems to mean by atheism, the mere 
dwelling on "second causes scattered," — the se- 
quence of events, as if brought about by a chance ; 
and hardly believes in the existence of atheism : — 
that any one can be so stupid as not to perceive the 
necessity of a fundamental matter, form, and law ; 
and says therefore that even that school which is 
most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate 
religion : that is, the school of Leucippus, Democ- 
ritus, and Epicurus. The forms and laws of 
nature Bacon sometimes calls the Mind of Nature ; 
and thus he is excused for exclaiming, what would 
otherwise from him be ridiculous and inconsistent, 
that he " had rather believe all the fables in the 
Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than 
that this universal frame is without a mind," or an 
affair of chance ; which would be nonsense, and 
clearly impossible. But in his Essay on Supersti- 
tion, he speaks approvingly of atheism, meaning 
the not believing the dogmas of the Church, as 
leaving a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural 
piety, to laws, to reputation. " And we see," he 
says, "the times inclined to atheism (as the time 
of Augustus Caesar) were civil times ; but super- 
stition hath been the confusion of many states, and 
bringeth in a new primum mobile that ravisheth 
all the spheres of government. The master of 
superstition is the people ; and in all superstition, 
wise men follow fools ; and arguments are fitted to 



184 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

practice in a reversed order. 57 If this be true in 
these times, it would seem that all statesmen should 
encourage atheism, as a means of preserving order 
and good conduct. 

Bacon protests against retributive judgments, and 
against any interference with the laws of nature, 
which he considers fixed and eternal; and the 
properties of matter to be " self-sustained," "as an 
adamantine necessity of nature," and the primitive 
matter to be " the cause of causes, itself without a 
cause." " For there is a certain limit of causes in 
nature ; and it would argue levity and inexperience 
in a philosopher to require or, imagine a cause for 
the last and positive power and law of nature, as 
much as it would not to demand a cause in those 
that are subordinate." * What can be inferred from 
this but that to require a cause beyond nature, and 
out of nature (which includes both second causes 
and the first cause ; but, in fact, there is but one, 
the first cause ; and what is called second cause is 
but the form and sequence), argues levity and inex- 
perience ? but, nevertheless, he added to the cause 
and causes ("God excepted"). That was to save 
his position and chancellorship j and he left the 
inconsistency to be unravelled in future time, when 
the age was ripe for the whole truth being clearly 
understood : in which times we now live. Bacon 
takes care, again and again, to show you that you 
cannot perceive in nature any thing but phenomena. 
You cannot perceive the workman in the work ; 

* De Cupidine. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 185 

that is, the cause in the phenomena — the funda- 
mental cause of causes — which is beyond the 
power of the senses and the understanding. Speak- 
ing of the idols of the mind, he declares against 
the idea of the first cause being of human shape, 
or of human mind, and says, " For if that great 
workmaster had been of a human disposition,'' &c. 
In another place, he considers the idea (maintained 
by the author of " The Vestiges ") of the formation 
of matter on mind, or " archetypal ideas," as one 
of the phantasms, or spectral illusions floating about, 
and playing on the surface of things. It is fine to 
hear the thunder of Bacon's eloquence against the 
arrogance and ignorance and persecuting spirit of 
the theologians. Only a few years before, the aged 
Galileo was taken before the Inquisition, and forced 
to " declare truth to be what the Church pleased, 
not what was declared in nature, but what was in 
'the Holy Scriptures.'" And think you those 
times are passed, and men are now pure and toler- 
ant ? Have we no living instances ? Was not 
Lawrence forced to retract his opinion ? And are 
not those noblest experiments of the age by Mr. 
Crosse* regarded with religious horror, and ridiculed 
by many ? Bacon denounces all introduction of 
abstracted forms, fantastical essences, final causes, 
or first causes, to interfere with the simple laws of 
nature, and of matter as we find it. For when 
" Folly is worshipped," he says, " it is, as it were, a 
plague-spot upon the understanding." "Yet some 

* Appendix S. 

16* 



186 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

moderns* have indulged this folly with consummate 
ineonsiderateness, that they have endeavored to 
build a S5^stem of natural philosophy on the first 
chapter of Genesis, the Book of Job, and other 
parts of Scripture, seeking thus the dead among 
the living." " The absurdities of some among 
them having proceeded so far, as to seek to derive 
the sciences from spirits and genii." It is only 
lately that we have ceased to believe that mad 
people are possessed by demons ; and many now 
believe, as our friend Mrs. Crowe, that the world is 
full of ghosts; and others dislike Mesmerism and 
Phrenology on account of religion, and consider 
that the cures by Mesmerism are the casting out 
of devils by the prince of devils. Time, Space 
and Causation are ultimate facts recognized by 
appropriate faculties of mind. Creation is a dis- 
tinct idea from Causation, or the doings of innate 
and existent powers and tendencies of matter ; and, 
like immateriality of being, is a fancy wholly un- 
realizable ; an absurdity arising out of the confusion 
of ideas from false analogy. A man models or 
reconstructs what is, but does not create ; his mind 
and will are wholly a result and consequent, and 
not a primitive determining cause. His mind 
recognizes the phenomenal world, as that world is 
to it ; but of the fundamental, the infinite, the 
universal, it knows nothing : and to imagine a 
cause like itself is to confound effects with causes, 
and to lose the little sense which we have, and 



Novum Organum, Lib. I. Aph. 65. 



BACON ON MATTER AND CAUSATION. 187 

to shut our eyes to that truth and nature which 
we might have, and that good which is the fruit 
of the tree of knowledge. 

No one can read the Novum Organum, the 
Advancement of Learning, the Fable of Cupid, or 
the Christian Paradoxes, without perceiving clearly 
the true nature of Bacon's mind, and that his 
religious professions were mere shams to shield 
himself from his enemies. Bacon seems to have 
been ever practising the craft of his wit ; and he 
declared that it was impossible to speak the truth 
openly : that he must nurse men's minds, and pre- 
pare them for the light, and graft upon the least 
objectionable of the old stock to obtain a hearing. 
He acted like a wary politician and a lawyer : and 
I think, even for the dangerous and troubled times 
in which he lived, he sometimes overacted. He 
admonished you to be wise as a serpent ; and this 
he was himself ; but not always, I fear, as harmless 
as a dove. However, it may be difficult to weigh 
the conduct and motives justly of such an original 
and vast intellect as Bacon's. But I need not 
wonder at Bacon when I know men in these pres- 
ent times facing the world with a greater hypocrisy 
even than Bacon used. It is time all this masquer- 
ading was at an end ; and when it is good for 
others to hear, let us never think whether or not it 
is wise for us to speak. Men who think of expe- 
diency in questions of fact will soon learn to be 
false and dishonest, and find for their conscience 
plausible pretexts for their misdemeanors. Better 



188 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

to be plain spoken (tempering courage with mod- 
esty) : and if the tide should sink us, what matter ? 
Better so, than to live in corruption. Or, as the 
Scripture has it in a selfish view, what will it 
profit you to gain the whole world, and lose your 
own soul ? Or, in other words, for what shall you 
exchange your love of truth, your sense of right, 
your impulse towards candor, and the desire of 
progress and universal happiness, and the fruits of 
knowledge, — of knowledge generally, — but the 
knowledge of Man, and the natural history of his 
mind, in particular ? Shall you know of water in 
the desert, and be silent, and see men perish of 
thirst ? 

It is certainly a startling fact to those who 
believe the resurrection of the body, that the sub- 
stance of the body should be constantly renewed ; 
and, at first, this fact seems to favor the idea of a 
soul, or spirit, or mind, entirely separate from, and 
independent of the body. But, on reconsideration, 
we find, as I have explained in my last, that the 
matter is simple enough, and has its place in the 
general order and doings of Nature. New matter 
becomes gradually substituted for the old, and takes 
its form : is immediately leavened or possessed with 
the nature of its position, and the condition of the 
being of whom it composes a part. Each part of 
the frame gives its condition to the new comer : 
and thus, not only the brain, but the lungs, stom- 
ach, liver, hair, bones, &c, continue the individ- 



INFERENCES AND DREAMS. 189 

uality and peculiarities of the person, even to the 
latent qualities which may pass through one gener- 
ation, and come out into relief in a third or fourth. 
In the same way, the memory of the past and 
personality are continued, and incessantly trans- 
ferred from matter to matter, and from body to 
body, and we retain the sense of personality, and 
the memory or sense of the sequence of our lives. 
One thing we must not forget ; that whether we 
be considered the result of the body, or of the 
body used as an instrument by a mind-being, we 
must be equally the result of inherent law — be 
the result or sequence of nature : for, if the mind 
be a separate and independent being, it must, to be- 
at all, have a nature or law of some kind : and, if 
minds were all equal, they would all act precisely 
alike, under like circumstances. If not originally 
or fundamentally alike, then the result must be in 
precise accordance with that difference. I mean, 
that it is not the fact of our being the result of 
matter, or the working from and in matter, that 
causes the non-responsibility ; but the necessity 
that whatever is, must have a nature of some kind, 
and must be subject to, and be its own form and 
law. I mention this simply because many persons 
believe that it is only the material and Baconian 
philosophy which subjects Man to the rule of 
necessity : and that when free from substance, he 
would be free in nature : which is an absurdity, 
and a mere delusion of the fancy. 

I quite agree with what you say about the idea 



190 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of another life. The desire of a future existence 
is merely a pampered habit of mind, founded upon 
the instinct of preservation. It is a longing ; and 
those who have it, are like drinkers or children. 
The drunkard looks upon the water drinker as a 
lower species of animal, and cannot understand his 
doing without the desire of drinking. The child 
fancies its own little enjoyment and promised holi- 
day to be all in all, and the whole world of pleas- 
ure. The young man is invited to No. 7, in the 
Terrace, sees a young lady, goes home and dreams 
of her, and thinks that on the possession of that 
one woman depends his happiness ; and he pities 
all besides for their ill luck or indifference. But, 
had he gone to No. 8, instead of No. 7, he might 
have seen another young lady of whom he would 
have thought in precisely the same manner. "Such 
tricks hath strong imagination," and such are the 
reasonings of desire. — It is, of course, in the same 
way with a religious faith, which is acquired from 
parents, or from the community in which we live. 
The Jew remains a Jew, the Christian a Christian, 
and the Mohammedan a Mohammedan. Each 
remains fixed and immovable, as if they were casts 
from a mould, — which indeed they are. Each is 
ready to die for his belief ; for all his hopes become 
centred in that belief: and yet this belief — what 
is it but the mere accident of his birth ? — the 
conventionalism and hereditary insanity of his class? 
Every one can see the extreme folly of his neigh- 
bor's belief : but his own is a divine mystery, — a 



INFERENCES AND DREAMS. 191 

thing too high for human reason. The lover wor- 
ships Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. The 
theologian will worship bad logic, bad morality 
and impotency, as the highest excellence : and, just 
as the lover was caught by Miss Smith at No. 7, 
instead of by Miss Brown at No. 8, so, from such 
a house you may safely predict will come forth a 
race of Jews, and out of the next a race of Jump- 
ers : just as certainly as a cat will have kittens and 
a dog puppies. A Frenchman speaks French, an 
Englishman, English : but Man is entranced, — 
dead asleep, — and there is no power in words to 
cause him to wake, and see these things, so full of 
amazement and humiliation to his spiritual pride. 
When men awake, they will not believe that they 
have been doing and thinking what they have. 
It will appear all as a dream. But it is no dream. 
It is a paralysis of one side of the understanding ; 
a lost sense ; a hereditary or induced blindness : 
but the lights which are already glimmering about 
the new philosophy will soon grow brighter, and 
begin to arouse men from their slumber. 

As regards belief in a future existence, the 
greater number who receive this as a most pleasing 
doctrine of faith, consider that we transfer our 
affections and desires to the other world, and shall 
there again meet what has been dear to us in this 
life. The wife expects to meet her husband and 
her child ; the ploughboy to sit on a gatepost, and 
eat fat bacon all day long. Swedenborg's notions 
tally with these worldly ideas and fireside doc- 



192 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

trines. Few would care for heaven, if they were 
to leave all their associates in this life, and become 
something else. I see no great harm in the fancy 
of another life, so long as it does not interfere with 
our good conduct in this, nor include the horrors 
of Hell, and drive men mad, or destroy their cour- 
age and true magnanimity. So long as we recog- 
nize no spiritual influences interfering with natural 
law, the daydream of another life may be harmless 
enough. 

In considering the nature of this continued iden- 
tity, which is no more wonder than the continued 
form of any thing else, or the continued reproduc- 
tion of the same type, — an oak from an oak, a 
man from a man, — we find the power chiefly to 
consist in habit or memory, and the ability to re- 
produce impressions, in the sequence in which they 
have occurred, and in relation to time and place. 
Identity is a matter of memory, or an individual- 
izing of the sequence. When this does not exist, 
as in cases of double consciousness, there is no 
identity. Many cases have occurred in my experi- 
ments, when sleep-wakers have not known them- 
selves ; and some have every thing to learn afresh 
in these states. Identity is memory occurring with 
the sense of personality. I seem to be the same 
that I was yesterday ; but I have no notion of 
identity with what I was, where memory does not 
hold — when a child, or when a baby, for instance ; 
nor can I say when I first became a being, or had 
the sense of personality. What becomes of iden- 



INFERENCES AND DREAMS. 193 

tity when a man believes himself a piece of glass ? 
In Bethlem Hospital there are two madmen, who 
disputed which of them was the Christ ; each 
identifying himself with Christ. At last, some one 
suggested that one might be Christ and the other 
the Savior. They were quite satisfied ; and they 
address each other now as Christ and the Savior. 
It is true, these are madmen, and exceptions : but 
to a law of nature there are no exceptions. We 
may argue that soap bubbles that we see floating in 
the air are solid bodies ; but if one comes against 
the wall and bursts, our fancy is destroyed at the 
same moment. One false case of identity takes 
away all reliance or argument, as to the continuity 
or unity of being from the ordinary sense of identity. 
With regard to the future, we experience con- 
sciousness at rest in sleep, — annihilation for a 
period : and we contemplate all nature changing, 
and every form falling away. Stones, plants, ani- 
mals, all passing away ; and we see that Man forms 
no exception. Sleep is ever suggesting to us the 
idea of rest, and using us to the idea : and my aged 
friend is pleased to contemplate the image of a 
sleeping child, and ready to welcome eternal rest 
when the change comes. Such is all the hope and 
the peaceful contemplation of a Baconian philoso- 
pher in his 80th year. " All that which is past," 
says Bacon, " is as a dream ; and he that hopes 
or depends upon time coming, dreams waking." 
And again, " I make not love to the continuance 
of days ; but to the goodness of them ; nor wish 
17 



194 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

to die, but refer myself to my hour." — But many 
seem to think there is something noble in the 
belief of a future, and of a retribution ; and of a 
Father in heaven, or a personal deity ; and cannot 
conceive of the unselfish sublimity of a more 
philosophical view of things. But what can be 
more impressive than the idea of the infinite and 
the eternal omnipresent Law, and principle of Na- 
ture? — that Man is of the dust ; and that conse- 
quently every grain of dust contains the latent 
principle of human nature, and of instincts and 
powers perhaps higher than mind has yet conceived 
of ; and infinite to our conceptions ? What more 
noble and glorious than a calm and joyful indif- 
ference about self and the future, in merging the 
individual in the general good, — the general good 
in universal nature ? And what are all these creeds 
and conventionalities but empty vanities, — a false 
show, — the swaddling clothes of children, — the 
crutches on which decaying age, broken down by 
false stimulants, supports itself? They are the 
false props and stays that have cramped and spoiled 
the natural body, and hindered its development in 
a vigorous growth, and its being able to sustain 
itself in true simplicity and dignity. But when 
men have become accustomed to false stimulus, it 
is hard to persuade them to taste water from the 
pure spring : and it is only the knowledge of the 
true philosophy of human beings, and the origin 
of all opinions and habits of thinking and feeling, 
that will change men's thoughts, and temper their 
passions. 



INFERENCES AND DREAMS. 195 

We may preach these things, and men will think 
us mad, or something worse. Truth and the prog- 
ress of humanity have at every step of advance 
been thought a desecration ; as Eldon thought it a 
desecration of the law to propose doing away with 
capital punishment for stealing a handkerchief. But 
when we once fairly pass the next corner in prog- 
ress, and men acknowledge the laws of mind, 
persecution will cease, and be regarded as the ex- 
tremest folly : as much so as when the child or its 
nurse beats the stool over which the little one has 
fallen. Man, who has seen himself only under a 
mask, will at length see himself as he really is. 
This will be the greatest, and the only wholly true 
and lasting revelation in regard to Man, the world 
has received. We do not war against any thing 
that is true in any one's thought or belief; nor 
against the rights of men and of property in any 
sense ; but only against lies, hypocrisy, and delu- 
sions of every sort. We desire real freedom, — 
the freedom of the mind to perceive clearly what 
is true, and to reason justly on all questions. This 
only can be the beginning of the reign of love, 
when men shall no more be irritated, by notions of 
free will and responsibility, to revenge, and pride, 
or be pampered in any foolish longings whatsoever. 
Nature and the mind shall then be no longer cabined 
and cribbed by ignorance of the human constitu- 
tion, and by the quaint follies of conventional 
fashions of thought. Art must not trim and de- 
form, but only imitate, Nature. Reason must not 



196 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

anticipate and prejudge, but from the beginning 
learn what is true. Nor need we fear too much 
light ; or that Nature, and the nature of Man, will 
err from any amount of real freedom and real 
knowledge we may acquire. We cannot go far 
enough, or dive too deep, or spread our thoughts 
too wide, so long as we hold close to the true 
method of induction ; for Man, the interpreter of 
Nature, is himself enclosed by the laws of Nature ; 
and Nature cannot err ; but the way has been de- 
vious ; and men's wildest fancies and greatest im- 
perfections are but the necessary steps in progress. 
And what a hopeful and calming influence has 
such a contemplation of Nature ! At this moment 
it is not I, but the nature within me, that dictates 
my speech, and guides my pen. I am what I am. 
I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, 
and cannot deserve either reward or punishment. 
And why should I require another life, or form of 
the same consciousness, or the same individuality 
and identity ? Why not every grain of sand that 
spreads over the wilderness possess a living con- 
dition ? Why should I live on in the future rather 
than have existed through the infinite past, — as 
some imagine they have done ? And what a chance 
(if I may use the term) is my existing at all ! A 
minute later, — nay, a second later, or the slightest 
change of circumstance in my conception, and it 
would not have been I that was born, but some one 
else. The slightest convulsion in the world would 
change the whole generation to come, and the 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 197 

race of beings consequently forever. Wondrous 
thought ! But it is truth, and who can doubt it ? 
But enough on this topic. Let us to another. 

The great fact of the Association of Ideas may 
be said, in the first place, to be founded on the ar- 
rangement of the organs of the brain, in harmony 
with the relations of the faculties. Thus the 
great fact and principle of the Association of our 
Ideas and feelings may be read upon the plan and 
associated arrangements of the parts of the brain 
which I have explained. We observe how the 
senses are associated, and how one fact is conveyed 
by different channels to the same organ, giving the 
same idea. The touch, for instance, gives form ; 
and so does the eye ; and so, in a measure, does the 
ear. The senses help and correct each other ; while, 
at the same time, each has its particular province. 
The Perceptive faculties are associated together, 
first in recognizing an object ; then its form, space, 
position, color, weight ; and then we consider its 
properties ; its use, its origin, its likeness or unlike- 
ness to other things ; its beauty, its construction, 
&c. : and then we give it a name. In all this 
there is a natural growth or evolution of one per- 
ception or idea from and with another. One rela- 
tion suggests or evolves another ; just as from the 
top of one hill we view the next, or several others : 
and the whole of these ideas, as relating to one 
object, group, or class, may be said to form one 
idea, or one conception of such ; almost as much 
17* 



198 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

so as a number of sheep are associated together in 
the idea of a flock. 

The brain is one great organ, or congeries of 
organs, evolved together in certain relations, and 
with certain capacities. It is a world within itself, 
and yet relating to, and depending on, all that is 
without. The mind evolved from the material of 
the brain is an impress of Nature, and corresponds 
with the nature and principles of the world with- 
out, rising from the mere outward perception of 
things to the workings of principles and laws. The 
mind depends on the condition of the brain : the 
brain on the condition of the rest of the body ; 
food, stomach, digestion, air, exercise, &c. ; and 
again, on all the external circumstances with which 
it is impressed. Of all these the mind is an exact 
result ; as much so as any music is the result of 
the nature of the instrument and the powers of the 
musician. The mind, set in action, passes into its 
natural and acquired harmonies or sympathies, just 
as the iEolian harp does. The laws are as deter- 
mined in the one case as in the other, and the 
results present an exact correspondence ; for it is 
the same Nature, acting in different spheres or 
forms. You have the bird's mind in its song ; and 
you have the Man's mind in his songs. Were it 
not so, there would be an end of music and the 
opera. The faculties of the mind play among 
themselves, and exhibit the peculiarities of the 
instrument, and whether it be in tune or not, and 
what strings have been tightened or loosened. The 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 199 

language of music, when it is a true utterance, is 
the most perfect development of all languages. 
Would that the mind was always in tune, and all 
was sweetest melody, and radiant harmony ! But 
alas ! for the discord of passions, and the discord 
of untruth, and the scraping on the instrument in 
self-considerations, — and the sounding brass and 
tinkling cymbal in our pride and vanities ! We 
talk of free will. From the instrument not recog- 
nizing its own harmonies, transitions and motions, 
we feel that we can will, but not what determines 
the can and the will. We do not see that the 
mind is a true republic, or that the Will, the Pres- 
ident, the Executive power, is chosen by the 
people : that the Will which determines is itself 
determined. Will is the echo and act of the 
majority and strongest power : as clearly so as the 
weathercock points to the wind, and the ship fol- 
lows the impress of the rudder and the sails, and 
is carried along by wind and tide. If it could 
think, it would imagine that it slid away by its 
own impulse and will, or undetermined force. The 
world would think itself free in its motion round 
the sun, until it discovered the laws of its motion, 
which determine its course to be precisely what it 
is, — a speck of dust whirling about and about, and 
filling its little place in the harmony of the uni- 
verse. Free will ! the very idea is enough to make 
a Democritus fall on his back and roar with laugh- 
ter, and a more serious thinker almost despair of 
bringing men to reason, — to experience the advan- 



200 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

tages of knowledge, and the calming influence of a 
recognition of universal law and necessity. 

It is the varying associations of ideas and feel- 
ings which constitute mind, and by which mind is 
in itself displayed and controlled. In the similitude 
of things, truth is associated with light, ignorance 
with darkness, brightness with gayety, the quaver- 
ing on a stop of music with the sparkling of light 
upon the water, gloom with grief. Beauty in a 
landscape may recall any other form of beauty, — 
as that of woman, or of man : and such similes 
and correspondences in our associations become 
elements of art and poetry. Every simple color or 
tone or form has its influence and correspondence 
and associations in the mind, as the instrument of 
instruments, the mirror and principle of the whole. 
Thus music, like all external nature, acts upon the 
mind, and finds its correspondence : and were the 
brain fully developed and exercised, the corre- 
spondence and response would be full and com- 
plete. There is music of war ; " spirit-stirring 
drum, and ear-piercing fife," and martial strains. 
We have love music, and sacred music, and songs 
of humor and conviviality. And a mind in such 
full harmony and tune as Shakspeare's would 
appreciate every characteristic by a responding 
influence on his brain. Thus the character of 
music has a conformity with the dispositions and 
nature of the mind ; and will soothe or dispose the 
mind in particular ways, in accordance with this 
correspondence. Nevertheless, if the mind be pre- 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 201 

possessed by any passion or habit, whatever stirs 
the spirit may only help to fan the flame of such 
disposition : and the spirit-stirring music which 
would impel to war, may also incite ambition or 
love, &c, according to the condition of the mind 
impressed. Different sounds may become asso- 
ciated with particular ideas or feelings ; and some 
may not recognize the distinctions between the 
expression of music and the mere sense of sound 
or harmonies. Nevertheless there is a true corre- 
spondence between the forms of music and the 
forms of mind ; but the mind must be capable and 
free to distinguish and receive true impressions, or 
will be at fault : just as a prejudiced mind finds in 
evidence and argument only confirmation of its 
errors, and reason for that which it desires. 

The first principle of Association is from the 
harmony and dependence of the faculties among 
themselves, and their relations to external nature : 
and these relations are fundamental, or more or less 
acquired through habit and circumstance. The 
mind becomes crippled and warped and prejudiced 
and diseased, after a strange fashion of mis-educa- 
tion and error, and it is no longer sane. Whatever 
has come together, and been presented, and ap- 
peared in company, becomes associated as one 
together : to the Christian, the Bible and religion ; 
to the Mohammedan, the Alcoran and religion. 
Some have associated fear with a mouse. Others 
I know go into fits at the sight of a spider. Others 
shudder at the sight of a pack of cards on a Sun- 



202 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

day. We associate evil with a bad man, and make 
it a person and black, and call it the devil. The 
African, on the other hand, associates evil with a 
pale aspect, and makes it a person and white, and. 
calls it the devil. We associate motion with wings, 
and so paint those feathered appendages on those 
impersonated virtues we call angels, whom we 
surround with light and haloes, and give them light 
golden hair and blue eyes. The heathen gods and 
goddesses were impersonations of qualities, an asso- 
ciation of qualities with ideal forms, personifying 
or representing the abstract ideas. In visions, 
when people fancy they see spirits or ghosts, im- 
pressions unconsciously evolve embodyings, pro- 
jected on the vision. Such is our tendency to 
associate every thing with persons or objects, 
according to our familiar conception. Those who 
have an impression of the death of friends (as 
several whom I know have) sometimes, as it were, 
see the form of the dying person ; at other times 
only have an intimation of the circumstance. And 
some have a form which they always associate 
with evil in the clairvoyant state, if not in their 
ordinary condition. Others in dreams have simple 
associations ; of which last, Bacon's dream on the 
death of his father is a good instance. Bacon 
says,* " There be many reports in History that 
upon the death of persons in near relationship, men 
have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remem- 
ber that, being in Paris, and my father dying in 

* Natural History, Cent. X. sec. 986. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 203 

London, two or three days before my father's death 
I had a dream, which I told to divers English gen- 
tlemen, that my father's house in the country was 
plastered all over with black mortar." — I myself, 
while sitting up with a lady who, from extreme ill 
health, could be held alive only by being kept con- 
tinually in a mesmeric state, on two occasions, in 
the quiet of the night, have known her recognize 
the death, at the moment of its occurring, of per- 
sons at a distance, whose immediate danger was 
unknown. On one occasion, it was a clear sight 
of the fact and circumstances, though occurring a 
hundred miles away. This was when the dying 
person was a relation. But in the other instance 
there was no relationship. The person was very 
ill, like herself, and it was a case with which she 
had great sympathy. The intimation of the death 
appeared in the form of a black cat coming over 
her bed ; which to her was the associated form of 
evil and death. 

Association arises out of similitudes, — of like- 
ness in the same sphere, or resemblance and corre- 
spondence in some other sphere : and again, in con- 
trasts. Associations arise from habit, and from 
reaction and exhaustion, from sympathy and 
antipathy. We fall upon reaction, contrast, &c, 
just as after looking at a red spot, the sense falls for 
relief upon the opposite condition, and presents a 
green image. How many silly persons you see 
scold and coax by turns; and ridiculously short 
turns they often are ! Light to truth, truth to 



204 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

beauty, beauty to goodness, are similitudes or cor- 
respondences in different spheres : and we see these 
associations in different media by the terms we use : 
— "a beautiful character : " " sweet music : " "a 
bitter feeling:" "a tone of mind:" "a bright 
conception : " '" flashes of wit." 

The sympathies and relations in mind and body 
are natural associations : and so again is the expres- 
sion of these in the language of actions, motions, 
or sounds ; and this again developed into artificial 
signs ; all which matter you doubtless understand 
as well as I. Habit is a great principle of Associ- 
ation, and likewise of Memory. Habit induces 
repetition. Associated ideas present themselves 
together, or follow in regular sequence. If I would 
recall a passage from a book, I see the page, and the 
place on the page where I saw it first. If I would 
recall an event, I place myself as nearly as possible 
in the position in which it occurred. We have a 
pre-notion that in memory we know a thing, and 
look for it, as it were, in a circle, and direct the 
attention as if there were places in memory. Phre- 
nologists have denied a separate faculty of atten- 
tion : and yet there is no faculty which acts more 
alone, and appears to be more distinct. The dog 
associates sport with the sight of the gun ; — as 
much so as his master. How pretty to see the 
flocks of pigeons at Venice, all fluttering about in 
the Piazza, at the sound of the bell of St. Mark's 
striking twelve ! 

Most of our muscular movements are uncon- 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 205 

scious, associated movements ; and results not 
interrupting but often essential to the abstraction 
and continuance of thought. The associations in 
time are more interesting, and perhaps least under- 
stood. We know what strange, but quite natural 
associations occur in our dreams j and often when 
we are awake. And when we would think well, 
the more freely we let the mind act by its own 
power and laws of association, the better. Some 
minds do not sustain these associations in sequence 
well. They want the faculty of order, and they 
fly off to something grotesque, or away from the 
matter. We generally spoil the results by forcing 
attention ; and in trying too hard to remember, 
we often forget the more. Newton said, that he 
let his mind rest upon a subject, and waited for the 
ideas to come. I have often tried the effects of 
indirect association in the mind by speaking out 
my thoughts as they occurred, and suggested each 
other, wholly without guidance ; and I have been 
astonished at the happy sequences that would 
occur, and the excellence and originality of the 
matter, and the mode of expression, — such as I 
cannot effect when I sit down to direct my atten- 
tion and write. One of our most eloquent writers 
and speakers tells me he can write only by first 
walking about the room, and uttering his sentiments 
as in a speech. Again, (and I now must end,) we 
know how associating words with music, and sense 
with rhymes, assists the memory. We should never 
recall the number of days in each month, but for 
18 



206 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the lines " Thirty days hath September," &c. Of 
course, the strength and peculiarity of our associa- 
tions depend on the natural strength of particular 
faculties, and the exercise of these. One associates 
things or ideas better with form ; others with col- 
ors or sounds. Some are forever associating persons 
in resemblance. It is quite a propensity with some 
to see how like one person is to another ; — the 
new comer to some familiar. Some attribute their 
own evil ways and thoughts to the whole world. 
Others more happily dwell on the good and the 
beautiful, and associating qualities of life with in- 
animate things, find 

" tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks ; 

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 



XVII. 

NOTHING. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

Thank you for the reply you have sent to some 
of my questions. I do not see how you can help 
making your letters so long, if I ask so many 
questions as in my last. Will you now please to 
dispose of more of them ? Others are rising in 
my mind, while I wait for your solution of these : 
but I will keep them back till I have heard from 
you again. 



KNOWLEDGE AND NOTIONS. 207 

XYIII. 

KNOWLEDGE AND NOTIONS. — RESULTS OF EACH. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

It appears to me that men for the most part have 
no clear notion of the nature of science, or of the 
laws of action and thought j but nature in general, 
and the nature of man in particular, seems to them 
to be a species of conjuring. But the true physiol- 
ogist studies the laws of matter, and the whole 
process of development, disentangling himself from 
all spiritual and metaphysical dogma, and will take 
into consideration all the circumstances which influ- 
ence the man from childhood to the grave. He 
will observe the conditions of the parents before 
the child is born, or even conceived ; and back 
through many generations, noting those conditions 
and tendencies which more particularly descend, 
and are impressed on the constitution, even to the 
third and fourth generation. He will observe the 
condition of the mother during the period of ges- 
tation, and the influences by which she has been 
surrounded ; and after the child is born, he will 
watch the treatment of the infant, and the gradual 
development of its instincts and powers, and the 
acquiring of names to things, which Hobbes con- 
siders to be the basis of the understanding. He 
will note how the child is trained to good or to 
evil, how its passions are stimulated and directed ; 



208 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and will observe how it is excited to anger and 
vengeance, often at a very early period, and even 
against inanimate objects ; and whether it be pam- 
pered and trained to vanity and pride, concealment, 
terror, superstition, selfishness, and falsehood, what 
it acquires by the force of example, and what is 
owing to its peculiar constitution ; how evil circum- 
stances will subdue a good tendency, and how a 
good natural disposition will triumph over evil in- 
fluences. He will not lose sight of his object when 
the child has become a young man at college, 
where we might expect to find the best education 
the knowledge of the age can afford. But here 
he will lament to observe inducements to idleness 
and dissipation, and vanity exhibited in an imitation 
of the lowest vices of society, which the youth is 
induced to think a fine thing, and to be a kind of 
wild manliness of his nature. Seldom do we find * 
the youth animated to solemn aspiration, and made 
earnest and hopeful in the pursuit of real knowl- 
edge. More frequently our future legislator will 
be found strutting abroad, with an immense Join- 
ville tie, driving a stage coach, horse-racing and 
betting, or perhaps doing what is far worse j ac- 
knowledging no higher object in life than pleasure 
and ambition — pleasure in low pursuits, and am- 
bition towards wealth and position. His studies 
are not of much account. The ability to make a 
few quotations from the classics, and a smattering 
of mathematics, are the chief results of a college 

* Appendix T. 



KNOWLEDGE AND NOTIONS. 209 

education. The sciences and modern languages are 
neglected, and he learns but little of general liter- 
ature and history. Above all, he remains ignorant 
of himself — of physiology and the laws of Man's 
nature, which, of all knowledge, is most conducive 
to a moral and useful life. He will imbibe a con- 
fused notion of unintelligible dogmas, — which are 
called religion, it is true, and which are vainly sup- 
posed to be all-sufficient to guide him through life, 
and to attain for him a place in a heaven after he is 
dead. He is taught that the first man was created 
perfect by a being who is all-powerful and all 
goodness ; that this man nevertheless erred, and 
brought death into the world ; and that, though he 
made not himself, he was punished for being what 
he was : and that all others inherit condemnation 
on this man's account ; that satisfaction is required 
by the designer and creator of this abortion for his 
own doing, and what he had predestined from the 
beginning : that he makes himself a son — who is 
himself — and is nailed upon a cross to be his own 
satisfaction * for what he has done ; and that, in 



* " It was a strange fancy to think to gratify the divine bounty 
with our afflictions, like the Lacedaemonians, who regaled their 
Diana with the tormenting of young boys, whom they caused to 
be whipped for her sake, very often to death. It was a savage 
humor to imagine to gratify the architect by the subversion of 
his building, and to think to take away the punishment due to 
the guilty, by punishing the innocent ; and that poor Iphigenia, 
at the port of Aulis, should by her death and immolation acquit 
towards God the whole army of the Greeks from all crimes they 
had committed." — Montaigne. 

18* 



210 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

believing this, men shall be saved, and forgiven the 
sin which is in their nature, and inherited from 
another. At the same time, man cannot believe 
unless he be made to believe. He is taught to 
respect the morality of vengeance and of partiality ; 
that man can do no good of himself, and yet has 
free will ; and that the soul or life can be separated 
as an entity, and be independent of the living thing. 
He is taught that few are chosen to heaven, but the 
greater number to damnation ; and this is to be 
considered a most consoling doctrine. And while 
men may be born to hell fire, they are instructed to 
love God with all their hearts, and to forgive one 
another to the seventy times seven. Stimulated to 
selfishness by the idea of reward and punishment, 
they are required to be unselfish, and urged to set 
their hearts on high things. They are taught to 
believe that they could not have existed as a con- 
sequence of nature, and as nature ; but that they 
were created by a being resembling themselves, who 
is at the same time incomprehensible ; that all 
nature is a fabric made out of nothing ; but that 
this wondrous Being — the first cause — is himself 
without a cause or beginning. They are to consider 
it necessary that man should have a maker, but that 
the demand of causality is to rest there. When 
each was a child, he was told that he came in the 
doctor's pocket, and that he must ask no more 
questions. He is now told that he was brought out 
of nothing by the great physician, and that it is 
wicked to inquire further. A lesser difficulty is 



KNOWLEDGE AND NOTIONS. 211 

thus solved only by a greater difficulty of the same 
nature ; or rather, it is thus that a difficulty which 
does not exist is invented and solved. 

This restless and craving absurdity of human 
wisdom may truly be called vain philosophy. Men 
are taught logic ; but it would seem to be the most 
useless invention, seeing that they afterwards be- 
lieve in the most illogical conclusions. They are 
taught, in fact, to believe in what is intellectually 
most absurd and monstrous, and morally vicious and 
most barbarous. But why proceed ; for the extent 
and folly of all this you know as well as I, and the 
horrors upon horrors which have been the conse- 
quences of these dogmas, the philosophy and origin 
of which may now be understood. 

There are thousands of noble minds now free 
from the dogmas of Christianity, which they see 
to be neither reasonable nor moral, nor logically 
deduced from the scripture records ; and that these 
records are contradictory, and fail in historical 
evidence. But there are other minds still in the 
transition state, not wholly released from super- 
naturalism and the habit of thoughts which they 
have acquired ; and these, desiring sympathy and a 
continued existence, please themselves in the belief 
of a God and a future. To some persons so 
situated it seems most sad and terrible to be left 
alone without a god upon this dreary earth. The 
stars and the sunlight, and all the loveliness of 
nature, but deepen their solitude, and seem a fearful 
mockery. They find no solace in the uncertain 



212 -MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and transient nature of human affections. What is 
all the world to them if to-morrow they die and are 
no more ? They have found that Christianity is not 
historically true ; and they shrink from finding their 
remnants of supernaturalism unphilosophical : and 
argument will start up from this feverish fancy, and 
mislead them for a time. The horror of loneliness 
in life, and annihilation at death, leads men to build 
upon " their pleasing hopes and fond desires," and 
create an ideal object and belief to satisfy this 
longing ; and the result is, that their affections are 
perverted from their proper sphere of action ; which 
is in the love and companionship of their fellow- 
creatures. Men must learn to forget themselves in 
their love of nature, and the love of their fellow- 
men ; and we must live on our thoughts towards 
others, and not on theirs towards us. All else is 
" vanity and vexation of spirit." We must learn to 
submit to the rule of nature, and remember that 
unhappiness and discontent are selfishness — impos- 
sible to a truly heroic and loving nature. 

Such men as Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Milton, 
Gibbon, have remarked on the unsatisfactory nature 
of the education afforded at our colleges. While 
knowledge advances with rapid strides, our colleges 
remain entranced, or hardly move at a snail's pace ; 
so that wise young men have to educate themselves, 
after they leave the University, and are fortunate 
if they but gradually unlearn the dogmas they have 
been taught. Philosophy has always been engaged 
m. unteaching the world : and it has still a mighty 



KNOWLEDGE AND NOTIONS. 213 

task to perform in this respect. Chemistry, Geology, 
Astronomy. Optics, &c, are now freed from super- 
stition, and have become true sciences. It remains 
for philosophers to place Physiology and Mental and 
Moral Philosophy in the same position as positive 
science reached by induction.* The delusions of 
ignorance and superstition are doubtless inveterate, 
and will not yield without a struggle and a spasm : 
but progress is a law of nature ; and to remain 
where we are, were it possible, would be convulsion 
and ruin. Democracy is advancing upon society. 
Neither priest nor soldier can restrain its natural 
course. Henceforth, the philosophy of Man, rightly 
understood, must restrain and guide man wisely and 
gradually into his true position — the position which 
his knowledge and his nature demand. 

But to form institutions in advance of society is 
a great mistake : and a still greater mistake is to 
keep our institutions behind the advance of intelli- 
gence. It is a common remark, that so long as 
human nature remains the same, things will remain 
pretty much as they are. But, on the contrary, I 
say that with a better philosophy we must advance : 
and that one day society will enjoy, to a great extent, 
liberty, equality and fraternity. The time will come 
when these will not be mere idle words upon a 
banner, but sentiments deeply engraven on men's 
hearts, and exhibited in their conduct. We may 
prophesy this with the same certainty with which 
Bacon prophesied the advance and influence of 

* Appendix U. 



214 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

general science : and it is right that we should do 
so ; for it is the end that gives value to the means, 
and life and interest to the labor. Men and nations 
get on much in the same way under all religious 
persuasions. It is not therefore the particular faith 
that is so essential, but the moral law which their 
faith binds them to whilst they are yet ignorant of 
the true philosophy of Man, — of the laws of his 
nature, the right mode of expanding his intellectual 
and moral being, and the consequences of miscon- 
duct. — Pure spirituality is exhibited and under- 
stood only through high intelligence. It is only 
by knowledge of Man that the principles of morals 
can be applied in all their force and usefulness to 
practice. There is a certain negative perfection and 
simplicity in ignorance, no doubt : but this becomes 
lost in superstition, and can only be regained and 
brought to its highest state by real knowledge. 
The innocence of the child will reappear in the 
wisdom of the philosopher ; and the lesser minds 
will be led by the stronger ones, as the sheep which 
in the East follow the shepherd. 

From the recognition of universal law we shall 
develop a universal love ; the disposition and ability 
to love without offence or ill feeling towards any. 
We shall see that no one can be a true friend to us 
who is not a friend to all. We shall learn that dirt 
is beauty unformed ; that evil is undeveloped good ; 
or rather, that we judge the universal in reference 
to ourselves, not ourself in reference to the universal. 
Men, for the most part, know not that which they 



RESULTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 215 

believe they know, nor perceive the depth and 
breadth of their ignorance ; but each is wise in his 
own conceit, and secure in his own folly : and " the 
fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his 
heart may discover itself." He is wise in his gen- 
eration who preaches to the world what the world 
already knows, and flatters the conceits of men. A 
Christ for these times will be persecuted by these 
times ; for a true prophet must ever be an offence to 
the world, until the philosophy of Man has become 
recognized as a true science, based wholly upon 
natural causes. Men have no faith in truth ; but 
will uphold error, believing it necessary as a kind of 
police force. They exaggerate the danger of a new 
truth, and do not recognize the good. In what is 
old they exaggerate the good, and do not recognize 
the evil. They do not perceive what is essential 
to the development of the time, and must be : but 
wait the deluge. Men run after every new fashion 
in trappings ; stare at the stupid diamonds which 
are stuck on an Indian prince, and hurry to see a 
new beast at the Zoological Gardens. All the 
while, their ideas " round about in darkness." They 
are ridden down by puritanical priestcraft. The 
press dares not speak out ; and, " for fear of the 
folk," wise men are silent. " Punch " is the wisest 
and merriest fellow among us. He attacks the 
British lion without hesitation ; but is no snake- 
charmer, and recoils before the venom of British 
bigotry. Government, the press, scientific men, and 
all, are prostrate slaves ; not before nature, who is 



216 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

only won by obedience ; not before Baconian wis- 
dom, or Christ's morality : — these are pushed aside, 
that men may lie prostrate before old wives' fables, 
far too silly for a nursery tale. And then we hear 
of miracles, as if it were not true, as Montaigne has 
well said, that belief in miracles is a measure of our 
ignorance. And, as for the fulfilment of prophecy, 
what can that prove but that the power of fore- 
seeing events is a power in nature ? In ignorant 
times it is supposed to be Divine inspiration : and 
that the supposed miracles should have been 
reported correctly, and without exaggeration, would 
have been a greater miracle than that which is 
reported. Most of that which is reported, and is 
supposed to be miraculous, is now easily accounted 
for. Errors and contradictions in the narratives are 
apparent. Make but a necessary and reasonable 
deduction for exaggeration, and the whole is under- 
stood. If no alteration is to be allowed, though 
error be proved, and supposed miracles are shown to 
be natural consequences, why then, to be consistent, 
we must believe in the miracles of other religions, 
and all equally well-authenticated tales. If men 
will not be reasonable, we must insist upon their 
being consistent in their folly. Carry out the prin- 
ciple on which any folly rests to the end, and it will 
destroy itself, and become its own condemnation ; 
whereas, the further you extend a truth, the more 
clear and consistent it appears. Those who think 
their religion true will not fear the approach of 
light, but will be heartily glad to welcome every 



RESULTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 217 

new truth ■ being satisfied that truth cannot oppose 
truth, but that every addition of fact must help to 
confirm or illustrate what was known before. Those 
who are uncertain of their position, or of their ability 
to prove what they profess and desire to retain, are 
the first to oppose the advance of science. But we 
must disregard Man's thoughts, and think only of 
Nature's truth. 

Mr. Sandby, in his interesting work on " Mesmer- 
ism and its Opponents,"* has confidently asserted 
that no comparison can be made between the facts 
of Mesmerism and the supposed miracles of Christ. 
Mr. Sandby wholly overlooks the fact that Christ 
(taking the narrative as it stands) was constitu- 
tionally a clairvoyant ; that he had " the gift of 
prophecy," and the ability to read men's thoughts, 
and to know the nature of their diseases, and their 
cure. He listened to the voice within him as 
somnambulists do. He had his attendant spirit, as 
Socrates had : and this voice of the intuitive faculty, 
he, like Swedenborg and others, believed to be the 
voice of God. He believed that he was divinely 
inspired, — a missionary, a prophet, the child of 
God: and out of this other delusions arose, as in 
all similar cases j and the carpenter's son, like the 
boy Davis in America, astonishes men with his 
learning. He prays and fasts, and is subject to 
ecstatic fits, which are termed transfiguration. He 
possesses an extraordinary power to influence others, 

* " Mesmerism and its Opponents/' by Rev. George Sandby. 
Longman. 

19 



218 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and to heal diseases, on account of his peculiar 
abnormal condition ; and he has a belief in an 
almost invincible force of faith ; that is, if you will 
but have faith in your ability, you may move 
mountains. Such being the case, Mr. Sandby's 
arguments fall to the ground : Christ would neces- 
sarily have an intuitive knowledge of diseases, and 
whether he could cure them or not ; and therefore 
would never fail. In the same way, he would 
know whether a person were dead or only in a 
trance, from which he might arouse him, and even 
at a great distance. He would also, in choosing his 
disciples, know those who possessed the necessary 
qualifications, both as regards the mental and 
physical power. He was subject to the ideas of 
his sect, as somnambules are to the religious atmos- 
phere in which they exist : and like them, too, he 
was possessed with the notion of a mission : that 
he was divinely inspired, and destined to reform 
the world. Had he lived a little longer, this feature 
of the state would doubtless have grown into ex- 
travagance ; and the world would have lost its 
Christianity. If we were to receive all we find in 
the account as fact, what can we say to the sick 
persons' being actually inhabited by devils : which 
devils spoke to Christ, and on one occasion besought 
him to let them go into a herd of swine ; and that 
the herd of swine, to the number of two thousand, 
rushed into the sea, and were destroyed ? That he 
had not always " clear sight" is shown in the 
instance of his going to the fig-tree, and being 



RESULTS OF NOTIONS. 219 

disappointed that there were no figs : and are we 
to approve of his declaring therefore that the tree 
shall henceforth bear no fruit ? Surely these are 
not the doings of pure intelligence and high moral- 
ity. Mr. Sandby adduces the account of the fig- 
tree instantly withering away, as a matter alto- 
gether out of the pale of Mesmerism : but Bacon 
did not think thus, though he was not acquainted 
with the wonders of mesmeric power ; but gives 
it as an experiment to be tried, — whether, by the 
force of imagination, you cannot cause a tree sud- 
denly to fade. — But Mr. Sandby quotes only one 
version of the story. He forgets that in Mark it is 
stated that it was only noticed that the tree had 
withered the following day. This is very important 
to note ; because such discrepancy shows that the 
accounts cannot be relied on for accuracy ; and it 
relieves us of the idea of the instantaneousness of 
the effect ; which is the point Mr. Sandby relies on. 
There are many most distressing cases of purely 
nervous condition which I have cured almost in- 
stantaneously. Nor is touching always requisite, 
as Mr. Sandby supposes. In. the case of the man 
who was dumb and had an impediment in his 
speech, it is described that Christ took him aside 
from the multitude, and put his fingers into his 
ears ; and he spat, and touched his tongue, &c. 
This is clearly a mesmeric process ; and we know 
not how long the process occupied. The patient 
was taken aside for the purpose. — In another 
instance, Christ spat on the ground, and made clay 



220 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of the spittle ; and he anointed the eyes of the 
blind man with the clay, and then bade him go and 
wash in the Pool of Siloam. — Again, in the case 
of the man with the dumb spirit, after his fit, he 
becomes "as one dead," or in a mesmeric sleep; 
and Christ took him by the hand, and he arose. — 
Again, in the case of blindness, the influence is 
clearly not instantaneous ; for, first, there is a par- 
tial recovery, — the seeing persons like moving 
trees. The operation is renewed before the com- 
plete sight is restored. — But I need not continue 
these instances, which nothing but professional 
blindness in one aware of the nature of Mesmerism 
could overlook. — Again, Mr. Sandby is not aware 
that the peculiar condition of one person can be 
conveyed to another. He is not aware of the 
influence of faith, and of mind on mind ; and that 
Christ might choose his disciples as fitting material 
to act upon. Mr. Sandby considers it miraculous 
that the apostles were able to do what Christ did, 
and had his powers conveyed to them. It is one 
of the remarkable facts of Mesmerism, that the 
nervous condition of one person may influence 
another in a similar way, and enable him in mes- 
merizing to produce similar effects. One person 
may influence another as the loadstone influences 
a piece of iron, and makes a magnet. — -On one 
occasion Christ felt the virtue going out of him. 
At the time when I was worn with mesmerizing 
night and day, and very sensitive, I experienced 
this repeatedly, and that patients under certain 



RESULTS OF NOTIONS. 221 

circumstances have the power to help themselves 
to the sanitary influence, just as they might attract 
a contagious disease.* 

As for the appearance of Christ after death, there 
are thousands of ghost stories of a similar charac- 
ter. In all cases, these appearances are subjective 
phenomena. When we think of the power mani- 
fested by such men as Greatrakes, Swedenborg and 
Zschokke, we need not marvel at the prophets of 
the East ; nor, once admitting the existence of a 
faculty, can we well limit its development. Christ, 
the prophets, the oracles, all exhibit features of the 
same great fact, — the existence of faculties in 
Man beyond sense, experience, and reason ; which 
faculties are chiefly called forth under abnormal 
conditions, but are seldom exhibited in a wholly 
pure state. — In this state, men listen to the voice 
of intuition, — - fancy themselves inspired, — are 
carried away by the delusion, — and delude the 
world with their wanderings. Christ's case seems 
to me as clear as daylight. — But I will end now, 
dnd reply to your questions in another letter. 

* Goethe describes instances of his grandfather's insight or 
clairvoyance, and says that " it is worthy to note also, that persons 
who showed no signs of prophetic insight at other times, acquired 
for the moment, while in his presence, and that by means of 
some sensible evidence, presentiments of diseases or death, which 
were then occurring in distant places ; but no such gift has been 
transmitted to any of his children, or grandchildren, who for the 
most part have been hearty people, enjoying life, and never going 
beyond the actual." — Goethe. Autobiography. 

19* 



222 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 



XIX. 

RELEASE FROM NOTIONS. — ENTRANCE UPON 
KNOWLEDGE. 

H. M. to H. G. A. 

I am glad I asked you in what sense you used the 
words "God," " Origin," &c, for your reply comes 
to me like a piece of refreshing sympathy, — as rare 
as it is refreshing. I cannot tell you how the pain 
grows upon me of seeing how little notion men 
have of the modesty and largeness of conception 
necessary in approaching the study of themselves 
or any other part of nature ; and in the conduct of 
their mere daily business. Of all the people I have 
ever known, how few there are who can suspend 
their opinion on so vast a subject as the origin and 
progression of the universe? How few there are 
who have ever thought of suspending their opinion ! 
How few who would not think it a sin so to sus- 
pend their opinion ! To me, however, it seems ab- 
solutely necessary, as well as the greatest possible 
relief, to come to a plain understanding with myself 
about it : and deep and sweet is the repose of having 
done so. There is no theory of a God,* of an 
author of Nature, of an origin of the universe, 
which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties; 

* Bacon says of Epicurus, (Essay XVI.,) »» His words are noble 
and divine : ' non deos vulgi negare profanum ; sed yulgi opiniones 
diis applicare profanum." " 



RELEASE FROM NOTIONS. 223 

which is not (to my feelings) so irreverent as to 
make me blush ; so misleading as to make me 
mourn. I can now hardly believe that it was I 
who once read Milton with scarcely any recoil from 
the theology ; or Paley's Natural Theology with 
pleasure at the ingenuity of the mechanic-god he 
thought he was recommending to the admiration 
of his readers. To think what the God of the 
multitude is, — * morally, as well as physically ! To 
think what the God of the spiritualist is ! and to 
remember the admission of the best of that class, 
that God is a projection of their own ideal faculty, 
recognizable only through that class of faculties, 
and by no means through any external evidence ! 
to see that they give the same account of the origin 
of Idols ; and simply pronounce that the first is an 
external reality, and the last an internal illusion ! 
To think that they begin with the superstition of 
supposing a God of essentially their own nature, 
who is their friend and in sympathy with them, and 
the director of all the events of their lives, and the 
thoughts of their minds ; and how, when driven 
from this grosser superstition by the evidences of 
Law which are all around them, they remove their 
God a stage from them, and talk of a general in- 
stead of a particular Providence, and a Necessity 
which modifies the character of prayer ; and how, 
next, when the absolute dominion of Law opens 
more and more to their perception, excluding all 
notions of revelation and personal intercourse be- 
tween a God and man, and of sameness of nature 



224 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

in God and man ; — ■ to think that, when men hav 
reached this point under the guidance of science, 
they should yet cling to the baseless notion of a 
single, conscious Being, outside of Nature, — him- 
self unaccounted for, and not himself accounting 
for Nature ! — How far happier it is to see — how 
much wiser to admit — that we know nothing 
whatever about the matter! And, from the mo- 
ment when we begin to discover the superstition 
of our childhood to be melting away, — to discover 
how absurd and shocking it is to be talking every 
day about our own passing moods and paltry inter- 
ests to a supposed author and guide of the universe, 
— how well it would be for us to set our minds 
free altogether, — to open them wide to evidence 
of what is true and what is not ! Till this is done, 
there is every danger of confusion in our faculties 
of reverence, of conscience, of moral perception, 
and of the pursuit and practice of truth. When it 
is done, what repose begins to pervade the mind ! 
What clearness of moral purpose naturally ensues ! 
and what healthful activity of the moral faculties ! 
When we have finally dismissed all notion of sub- 
jection to a supreme lawless Will, — all the per- 
plexing notions about sin and responsibility, and 
arbitrary reward and punishment, — and stand free 
to see where we are, and to study our own nature, 
and recognize our own conditions, — the relief is 
like that of coming out of a cave full of painted 
shadows under the free sky, with the earth open 
around us to the horizon. What a new perception 



ENTRANCE UPON KNOWLEDGE. 225 

we obtain of " the beauty of holiness," — the 
loveliness of a healthful moral condition. — accord- 
ant with the laws of nature, and not with the re- 
quisitions of theology ! What a new sense of 
reverence awakens in us when, dismissing the image 
of a creator bringing the universe out of nothing, 
we clearly perceive that the very conception of 
origin is too great for us, and that deeper and deep- 
er down in the abysses of time, farther and farther 
away in the vistas of the ages, all was still what 
we see it now, — a system of ever-working forces, 
producing forms, uniform in certain lines and large- 
ly various in the whole, and all under the operation 
of immutable Law ! But I need not enlarge to 
you on the privileges of a state of freedom and 
reality. You know what it is to have no longer 
cause to blush for the moral character of your faith, 
and to tremble when a passing breeze finds its way 
into the old cavern, and shakes the painted vapors, 
and threatens to dissolve them. I will only just 
ask whether you know the passages in Sir James 
Mackintosh's Diary, on Immortality and the The- 
ists' and philosophical Atheists' conceptions of God 
and Virtue.* They interested me deeply, many 
years ago, not only on account of the solemnity of 
their subject and the majestic composure of their 
tone, but because they first (as far as I remember) 
opened to me a full conception of the wisdom and 
beauty of a suspensive state of mind on the sub- 
jects of origin and destination or issue. Oh ! if we 

* Appendix V. 



226 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

could have Bacon back again, now, when science 
is daily chastening our views, and he might speak 
what he knew and thought, and find response in 
the midst of reprobation ! What you quote from 
him is extremely interesting, and ought to set us 
studying him from end to end, — separating the 
real from the pretended, — tracking the vessel 
in which he stretched out over the broad ocean of 
Truth, rather than the tubs he threw out to the 
whales. 

In reading over again your account of the train- 
ing of a youth of our own time, I can but rejoice 
that nature is, on the whole, too strong for our 
perverseness : that the brain of every human crea- 
ture will work, in some sort of balance of its parts, 
through all the mischief we do it by our ignorance 
and faulty aims. What beautiful conscientiousness 
and earnestness we meet with here and there, 
amidst the Yanity Fair of such a college life as you 
describe ! — and what a hail to truth makes itself 
heard now and then amidst the hubbub of dogma- 
tism and denunciation ! I see, however, more and 
more, from year to year, the moral mischief that is 
arising from the loose and uncertain way in which 
Christianity is regarded, here and there throughout 
society in England, and especially in the Univer- 
sities. I shall be glad of any increase of Science, 
chemical, physiological, logical, or moral, — which 
may put an end to the state of pretence in which 
we are going on from day to day. It would inter- 
est you to see a letter I am going to answer from a 



ENTRANCE UPON KNOWLEDGE. 227 

clergyman far in the interior of the United States, 
who declares that his people, as well as himself, 
want only truth — sure that it can never be hostile 
to holiness. They are not satisfied of the Chris- 
tian religion being a revelation attested by miracles, 
and do not see (being Theists) why its value de- 
pends on the establishment of sach a claim. The 
phenomena of Mesmerism, — the healing of dis- 
eases, thought-reading, clairvoyance, and pre-vision. 
— have awakened this clergyman, as you might 
suppose, leaving him with a very different impres- 
sion of the scripture miracles from that which he 
brought from college. If I could admit the narra- 
tives of Jesus and his miracles to be historically 
true, I should adopt your view of the powers by 
which he wrought them. I am disposed, rather, to 
regard Strauss's exposition of the case to be the 
true one, and to admit that the tales are mainly 
legendary, and a perpetuation of the ideas, and 
repetition of the narratives, of old Jewish traditions. 
In that case, however, the explanation answers 
alike well : for the endowment of orientals with 
greater mesmeric powers than the western races 
would alike be at the bottom of the case. No one 
who has travelled in the East, aware of the facts 
of mesmerism, can wonder at any amount of be- 
lief and statement of " miracles," which there 
abound on every hand. Whoever and whatever 
Jesus might be (of which I think we know little 
or nothing), the traditions which settled on his 
head are easily derivable from the physiological 



228 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

and theological peculiarities of the race, its locality 
and period of time. 

I agree, from my heart, with you about the sup- 
posed need of reciprocity of religious affections 
with a divine being arising from a deficiency of 
moral development. I am confident that a man 
who cannot find full exercise for his moral nature 
in our actual life is below profiting by " divine " 
intercourses. I am confident that the true moral 
life is found in going out of ourselves, — that "it 
is more blessed to give than to receive " of the 
treasures of the affections ; and it is refreshing to 
read your strong assertion of this. I look back 
with a kind of horror, as well as deep pity, on my- 
self, in the days when I thought it my duty to cul- 
tivate (against nature) an anxious solicitude about 
my own "salvation," — my own future spiritual 
welfare. I should now think this as bad as en- 
grossing myself with storing up means of pros- 
perity while my brother had need. How sweet it 
is to be loose from all such solicitude, and to let 
one's best nature have its free play from hour to 
hour ! 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 229 

XX. 

NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

I will look at those passages you refer to in Sir 
J. Mackintosh's Diary the first opportunity. Athe- 
ism and Materialism are terms used by vulgar 
minds to frighten the ignorant. " We fool our- 
selves * with our own fopperies and inventions, 
like children who are frightened with the same 
face of their playfellow, that they themselves have 
smeared and smutted." Vulgar men strive to raise 
themselves by degrading others ; and when they 
are foiled by reason, they swear and use bad names. 
To say that a man is an Atheist is*to u smear and 
smut " his reputation, and to cause him to be avoid- 
ed with fear and disgust, as if he were possessed of 
the plague, or were a murderer and devourer of 
human flesh. Every theologian, though differing 
from other theologians, assumes that he is in the 
true faith, and worships the true God ; and that 
his faith is a revelation proved by miracles ; and he 
conceives, with a strange appearance of presumption, 
that he is called upon to abuse all the rest of the 
world, and to strive to convert them to his particu- 
lar faith, that they may partake of its advantages. 
But we must judge of the tree by its fruits, and 
not by its promises. Men have faith enough ; but 

* Montaigne. 

20 



230 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

not in the best things. It is not faith that is 
wanted, but knowledge. Faith will not give 
knowledge, but knowledge will give faith, and ele- 
vate its character. Blind faith is a stumbling 
block ; enlightened faith is a clear path, and a 
heaven on earth. 

How many significations are there to the term 
Materialism ? And yet men who ought to know 
better, use this word as a term of reproach, without 
defining what they mean by it. Words have as 
many significations as the chamelion has colors. 
One understands by the term God, precisely what 
another understands by Atheism. What we under- 
stand by Christianity, another considers utter infi- 
delity. What one sees as a terrible fatalism, an- 
other recognizes as beautiful harmony, eternal and 
universal law. It is astonishing how much ill 
feeling is avoided by bringing men to the definition 
of terms ; by bringing men out of their feelings 
and imaginations down to the matter of fact ; — to 
discuss the nature and evidence of their opinions as 
we should a problem in Euclid. We may express 
a dislike to hypocrisy, to gluttony, to irreligion, to 
indecency and worldliness ; but a good mind will 
not dislike the men, but only their immoral condi- 
tion. Much less will he slander any one for his 
honest intellectual convictions. Christians have 
hunted down and destroyed their victims in their 
turn, as Christ was hunted down and destroyed. 
Under every religious faith men persecute and are 
persecuted. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 231 

Christianity has not christianized the world. It 
is those who are guilty of the like offence who are 
the first accusers. The immoral woman hunts her 
sister into the street. The proud man is forever 
trampling upon his brothers pride. The cunning 
and the vain see nothing but hypocrisy and vanity 
in the world. The savage destructive priest con- 
demns men to hell fire — dwelling upon those 
qualities of their God which predominate in them- 
selves. The worldly mind misconstrues motives, 
and cannot comprehend a generous nature. The 
"unchristian" mind calls the Jew " dog." It is 
not the pure and intellectual that persecute men for 
their opinions, but the ignorant and the bigoted. 
The selfish cried out " Great is Diana of the Ephe- 
sians : " the blind and ignorant called for Barabbas. 
Democritus might well laugh at the foolishness of 
men. He would sometimes hardly know whether 
it were more right to laugh or to weep, or become 
indifferent. Men try to paint a flattering likeness 
of themselves, and call it God ; and they usually 
exhibit a monster. It is said that Man is a god to 
the dog : but this is a mistake. Dogs fear and 
follow men, and bite men ; but they do not worship 
them. We might learn from the lower animals 
many of the errors which struggling reason falls 
into. They reprove us for our fears and our hopes, 
and are free from the follies of philosophers and 
divines. But we must mend through knowledge, 
and cultivate men's virtues, rather than reprove 
them for their failings. 



232 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

Xenophanes pleasantly said, as Montaigne tells 
us, " that if beasts frame any gods to themselves, 
as it is likely they do, they make them certainly 
such as themselves are, and glorify themselves in 
it, as we do. For why may not a goose say thus : 
All the parts of the universe I have an interest in. 
The earth serves me to walk upon ; the sun to 
light me ; the stars have their influence upon me ; 
I have such an advantage by the winds, and such 
by the waters. There is nothing that yon heaven- 
ly roof looks upon so favorably as me. I am the 
darling of Nature. Is it not man that keeps, lodges, 
and serves me ? It is for me that he both saws 
and grinds. If he eats me, he does the same by 
his fellow-men ; and so do I the worms that kill 
and devour him." And Montaigne says, " As much 
might be said by a crane, and with greater confi- 
dence, upon the account of the liberty of his flight, 
and the possessing of that high and beautiful re- 
gion. Tarn blanda conciliatrix, et tarn sui est lena 
ipsa Natura. So flattering and wheedling a bawd 
is Nature to herself." We judge according to our 
impressions, and the conditions of our minds. A 
child believes that its parent knows all things, and 
can do all things : and when it awakes from this 
dream, it is only to transfer its notion to an ideal 
object, — to a universal parent. How natural the 
growth of the idea, and the transfer ! Great men 
have been thought gods all-powerful ; and gods 
have been thought of as great men. u Augustus 
had more temples than Jupiter ; served with as 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 233 

much religion and belief in miracles." We only 
know phenomena : and phenomena are no repre- 
sentation of the cause of the eternal and inherent 
force of nature. — The dreams and promises of 
theologians do not exhibit what men know, but 
what they wish ; and their wishes are follies. — 
The sailor wished that the earth was all tobacco, 
and the rivers brandy. The psalm-singer's highest 
notion of heaven is to be singing God's praises 
continually. Men " sing to the praise and glory 
of God," seeing in him a jealous man, — a wretched 
image of their own miserable selves. A man can 
but image what he knows, and what he feels. The 
impressions he has received are the materials from 
which the picture is composed : and though he 
cannot make a smallest worm or particle of dust, 
imagines a creator or cause to be the same vain, 
incompetent animal as himself. The first aphorism 
of the Novum Organum is, " Man, as the minister 
and interpreter of Nature, does and understands as 
much as his observations on the order of Nature, 
either with regard to things or the mind, permit 
him ; and neither knows nor is capable of more." 

But in vain does Man endeavor to search the 
secrets of heaven by the " waxen wings of the 
senses." How strange is the phenomenon of a 
mind like that of Mr. F. W. Newman, which, in 
leaving revelation, does not yet advance, but floats 
over from one form of error to another, and " loses 
itself in a mixture of its own inventions ! " Mr. 
Newman forgets that many among those whom he 
20* 



234 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

calls Atheists have gone through the experience 
of those religious sensations by which he is now 
influenced. They deny that Nature, which exhib- 
its forms and ends as determined and necessary 
consequences of what is, is designed, or could have 
been designed ; since we must, after all, go back 
to a fundamental cause which is not designed, but 
the cause of the designer ; but they do not deny 
this from inexperience of religious emotions. Hav- 
ing had his experience, they are fully capable of 
meeting him in argument. Fitness in nature is no 
evidence of design. That the lungs are fitted for 
breathing, and the eye for seeing, is no more evi- 
dence of design than that the seal is fitted to the 
impression, or that the two halves make the whole. 
Mr. Newman would say that we are ''deficient in 
the religious faculty," and yet I believe that a pre- 
dominance of the religious faculty has been mani- 
fested in a marked way by both of us, from our 
youth upwards, and has borne us past all the forms 
of fiction which are the offspring of ignorance and 
a false philosophy, to seek out and respect the real 
substance of faith as found in Man's nature, in 
relation to universal nature; — the substance, in 
fact, of all the shadows which men, seeing cast 
before them, have fallen in love with. 

Mr. Newman says,* very properly, " A God un- 
caused, and existing from eternity, is to the full as 
incomprehensible as a world uncaused, and existing 
from eternity." His whole argument rests on the 

* '< The Soul," p.- 36. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 235 

belief in the impossible thing free will, and in the 
illogical conclusion that fitness shows design, — an 
equally impossible thing. As I have said before, 
fitness in art argues design ; but in nature only- 
points to a law ; to the form and nature of that 
which is, and of which design is an inter-reflection. 
Absolute free will and creative power are a down- 
right impossibility. We must be content with the 
solemn, incomprehensible fact of nature, — all at- 
tempts to comprehend which are " vain philosophy 
and human wisdom." But those who cannot 
maintain an abstract idea, and from the constant 
contemplation of material forms, and by the ob- 
truding self, and false analogy with self, lose them- 
selves in generalization, personify and limit the 
powers of nature. 

He who does not suppose a personal God, or look 
for a future, may, nevertheless, be most unselfish 
and deeply religious : so religious, that he shrinks 
from all the forms of worship, because he sees in 
them all but forms of worship, and forms of fancy, 
and not the spirit and the image of truth. There 
are thousands upon thousands who have no clear 
knowledge on any one question relating to their 
religion, and yet are most proud in declaring them- 
selves Christian, although it be not certain that they 
possess any one Christian self-denying virtue. 

Were Christ to appear among such persons, he 
would not be recognized ; nor would he recognize 
them as Christian. Saying, " I am a Christian," 
and crying, "Lord. Lord ! " will not open the gate 



236 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of heaven to any man ; and those who would 
jostle in before their neighbors, shall be the last to 
enter, and the least in heaven ; — in the heaven of 
a truly virtuous and loving heart. I think a man 
may be so religious as to be quite shocked with all 
notions of prayer, and all familiar intercourse with 
'•deity" whatsoever. We must pause in wonder 
before the great mystery of nature, — the hidden 
truth and the cause, and learn that knowledge is 
power, and knowledge is wisdom, and wisdom and 
power are in obedience : for, by yielding to the 
law, the law is fulfilled, and works are accomplished. 
Christ lived and died for the good of mankind. 
Socrates lived and died for the good of mankind : 
and so ought we all to live and die for the good of 
mankind : and only by forgetting self shall we 
elevate and ennoble life. I would not accept of 
" heaven if I thought that others were to go to 
hell." 

The idea of a God and ruler is essential in rude 
and barbarous times, just as the idea of loyalty may 
be essential, though the king be never seen : and 
the fear of hell may be useful as the fear of the 
gallows is useful, — in barbarous times like the 
present. Creeds stagnate, and prevent develop- 
ment and progress. Christian morals are considered 
perfect ; but they will require much weeding and 
developing before they can be accepted by high 
and philosophic minds, — by the best and most 
enlightened minds of the present day. And is 
there no place for man's faith when he has ceased 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 237 

the worship of idols ? It is the idlest folly to 
suppose that the idea of Necessity would set men 
loose among their evil passions. But, that we 
require something to reverence, and elevate our 
thoughts towards, is true. Knowledge gives us a 
more elevated poetry, gives us the chart and laws 
of mind to guide us, and will exhibit to us higher 
objects for reverence. Is it nothing to have faith 
in nature ; to have faith in knowledge, and in 
goodness, which is the fruit of knowledge ? Is it 
nothing to have faith in love ? Is it nothing to 
regard Nature in all her forms with profound rev- 
erence ? to love truth, and worship goodness, and 
find no place for contempt of any living thing or 
condition of matter ? Trained in the knowledge 
of the laws of mind, to find it impossible to take 
offence: — what a soothing influence! What a 
blessing, this one circumstance ! what a foundation 
for virtue and generosity ! and for peace of mind ! 
Is it nothing to cast away ambition ? to desire 
excellence rather than to excel ? to feel a noble 
contentment in reflecting that you are a part of 
nature — a form of the eternal ? Is there nothing 
in that faith which seeks for happiness out of self 
in the happiness of others, and the glories of na- 
ture, — content that in death the sense of person- 
ality shall pass away, and that you shall be as you 
were before you were — in a sleep for evermore ? 
— to know that self-derived individual and human 
power is a fiction, a form, and nothing more ? If 
the Mohammedan or the Christian would preach to 



238 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

me, let his doctrine be wholly unselfish, or I should 
not attend to him. — Bishops, the representatives 
of Christ, live in palaces. How odd it sounds ! 
Christ's representative in a palace ; and in 1850 
years, cannot settle what the effect is of a few drops 
of water sprinkled on a child's face ! How won- 
derful the phenomena of credulity and priesthood ! 

We have watched the influence and working of 
men's faith, and learned to estimate their prejudices 
and habits of mind, and the force of the different 
weights which balance and move their thoughts : 
and when men disparage one another, and bluster 
about as champions of a faith, we may know what 
is going on; " by what string the puppet has been 
moved ; " and he ceases to have power to move us. 
We cannot be moved, except by the force of reason, 
and the example of a disinterested life. It is- the 
light of truth which must guide our steps : it is the 
warmth of goodness which must develop the latent 
good that is in us. How little those who are pleased 
to represent human nature as selfish — that even 
goodness is a selfishness — how little they under- 
stand the laws of mind, and how, for instance, the 
impulse of benevolence, the love of truth, or the 
sense of beauty, is wholly independent of selfish- 
ness ! Of course, as a part of Nature, as a creature 
of necessity, as governed by law, Man is neither 
selfish nor unselfish, — neither good nor evil, — 
worthy nor unworthy ; but simply nature, and what 
is possible to nature, and could not be otherwise. 

Plato says that "Nature is nothing but an 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 239 

enigmatic poesy : " Montaigne says that philosophy 
is " only sophistical poetry : " and with some truth 
in regard to the philosophy then existing, and before 
Bacon's time. However this be, it seems to me 
that our nature is essentially romantic ; that from 
childhood to old age, we are exhibiting the spirit 
of romance, in one form or other ; but the highest 
truth exhibiting the highest poetry and the noblest 
romance. We are all heroes and worshippers of 
heroes. Every period of life has its poetry, its 
hopes and fears, — its castle buildings in the air, — 
its ideal and its idols. We are all lovers and poets. 
The world too is full of insane doctrines arid cus- 
toms, fashioned in our ignorance ; and each thinks 
he can see the insanity of his neighbor, but does 
not see his own. Men strive beyond the power 
and very nature of the understanding, and repose 
upon the incongruities of a disturbed dream : but 
" the sub tilt y of Nature is far beyond that of the 
sense, or of the understanding." Even the finer 
sense of the clairvoyant cannot reach beyond 
phenomena; and if he could perceive the whole 
process of his prophecies, it would not dip one 
line's breadth beyond this. Men are forever run- 
ning after some will-o'-the-wisp or other, — seeking 
after gold or power, — luxury or pure spirituality ; 
— fame over the wide world, or that strange phan- 
tom, posthumous fame. When I was a child, and 
I wandered into the woods after butterflies and birds' 
eggs, what a romance it was ! My heart beats now 
to think of the wonder, the ecstasy and romance of 



240 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

those days ; and when I believed in spirits and hob- 
goblins, — in Jack the Giant Killer j and afterwards 
in Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, and in 
Don Quixote. O ! what delightful romance it all 
was ! — the impression of those books ! and then 
came the greatest romance of all ; — the romance 
of the Bible and a religion. A strange tale that to 
relate ; — how the impressions came and grew ; 
how they influenced me, and how they passed away. 
And then the strange feeling, — to seem to be 
walking wide awake through the world while in a 
dream, — men pressing after one wild delusion or 
another, as if drawn by enchantment ; — and each 
opposed to each, and nation opposed to nation, — - 
all wandering away, as in " a mighty maze without 
a plan." It is only when we begin to interpret 
these dreams by a knowledge of causes, and of the 
laws and conditions of Mind, that we seem to be 
again at ease, and in sympathy with our fellows, 
and perceive our true position and relations, and the 
necessity of all that exists in its time and in its 
place. When people say that there is no longer 
any romance in the world, it is because they love 
romance, and their heart is full of it. The lover, 
the mother, the grandmother, how romantic they 
all are ! The speculations of trade, even the mind 
of the poor man who gathers watercresses, and 
carries them from door to door along the street, has 
its romance. The warrior, the sportsman, is carried 
away by enthusiasm into danger, and delights in 
adventure. Look into the libraries, and theatres. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 241 

and ball-rooms, and you find romance the ruling 
passion. And what is religion but another feature 
of romance, with its wonders upon wonders, — its 
hopes, its terrors, its fictions ! Baron Munchausen 
is a tame affair to it. And then to become one of 
the elect, to win salvation, and an enchanted life 
beyond the grave ; — to convert others, and win 
salvation for them ; to be carried into the seventh 
heaven, — is it not the very ecstasy of romance ? 
And to believe that it is all true ; that the prophecies, 
the miracles, the morals, all prove it to be true ; the 
Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mother, 
— what personages these are ! Sweep away these 
ideas, and clear the ground ; — how sad it seems ! 
how blank the space where they were ! It is hard 
for reason and for history to struggle against such 
romance as this ; to throw off the glorious promises, 
and awake to common life. But every change has 
its immediate evil. We live, not for the past, but 
for the future ; and wake men must, however painful 
it be. We must speak out the truth that is within 
us, even though we shall grievously offend our 
mother or our sister, or our dearest friend ; and 
Truth shall be to us as a mother, a sister, and a 
friend. A man is loved for his virtue so long as 
his viitue gives no offence to the prejudices, vanities, 
or vices of others. The reformer must disturb the 
opinions of many ; and he is as a robber, and breaks 
into men's habits, and robs them of the opinions 
which may have been their stay, their character, 
their wealth, child and idol. How pitiful to observe 
21 



242 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the miser when he is losing his hoard ; the proud 
when they fall ; the lover who has just lost his 
mistress ! It were almost better that such men had 
never been born. And how terrible for a man to 
lose his God, and all his hope of heaven ! But 
fortunately the waking is generally very gradual, 
and from stage to stage. Those who are in the 
delightful condition of mesmeric sleep pray you to 
let them sleep on, and forever. 

There are many who have a half knowledge that 
their religion is but a waking dream, yet beg you 
will not disturb them. The miser would not have 
you wake him to a true sense of the value of his 
gold. To throw down his glittering idol would 
appear to him a worse evil than to take his life ; 
for it would seem as if it would deprive him at 
once of all hope and joy, and leave him utterly 
desolate. How terrible is the account Charles 
Lamb gives of himself,* — how he had become a 
drunkard, and was forced to return to his liquor ! 
I believe few men are aware of what abject slaves 
they are to custom and to prejudice, so that " be 
it the Obi or the worship of images, or any other 
absurdity, when it is once introduced, an artful or 
an enlightened statesman may prolong it for cen- 
turies." A beneficed clergyman of the Church of 
England is no more able to judge fairly of argu- 
ments opposed to those thirty-nine articles of faith 
he has sworn to maintain, than is a Mohammedan 
able to judge correctly of the arguments of a 

* Essays of Elia. " Confessions of a Drunkard." 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 243 

Christian. Men are much the same in all profes- 
sions. When I speak of the clergyman or the phy- 
sician, I speak not of any individual or class of 
men, but of human nature under particular influ- 
ences. " The wisdom of the law-maker is one," 
says Bacon, " and of a lawyer another." Few men 
are wholly honest : and but few again of these 
honest men are capable of suspending their judg- 
ment, but, when their prejudices are concerned, 
" have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of 
any true decision." Those who have cut them- 
selves free from all inveterate habits and the world's 
ties, may still have their prejudices : but they are 
bound only by threads instead of by cables. Their 
circle is widened, their liberty the greater, and 
their judgment free. Men cannot help themselves. 
How can a man suspend his judgment on the way- 
side, when he is already thrust into a prison, and 
is taught to believe this prison to be a beautiful 
palace ? He no more desires freedom, or can con- 
ceive a better state of things, or a higher truth, than 
the poor women you describe in a harem. Rattling 
their own chains the while, it is odd to see how 
men compassionate others * whom they see to be 
in bondage. A madman, who thinks himself made 
of glass, sees clearly enough the folly of one who 
declares himself Jesus Christ. Bat the folly which 
exists about freedom of will prevents men from 
acknowledging the entireness of this bondage, or 
from being startled at their own position. When 

* Appendix W. 



244 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

we recognize the helplessness and dependence of 
men under various conditions of life, and habits of 
mind, we shall learn to sympathize with all, to 
bear with all, and deeply commiserate those who 
are disturbed, and awaking from a dream. If hap- 
piness be the end and aim of life, as some think, it 
seems to me that ecstasy is the highest state of 
enjoyment we are capable of; and had we been 
designed, and our happiness considered. I think we 
should have been left to the joys of ecstasy for- 
ever, and each individual multiplied fifty million 
times, and to infinity. This is not nonsense. 
Either the possibility or the benevolence must be 
limited, if happiness be not complete, continuous, 
and infinite. 

But these are speculations for poets and the 
divines. The philosopher has only to do with 
things as they are, — with second causes. He 
knows no final cause, nor the nature of that cause 
condition fundamental to phenomena. Men take 
up knowledge by fragments. There are few whose 
circle is complete ; so that it seems as if society 
was composed of fragments of men. A man does 
some noble thing in one direction, and delights us ; 
but we are painfully impressed with his shortcoming 
in some other department. It is the entireness, 
the compass of the circle, the universality, that is 
the greatness of Bacon. His greatness is more in 
the matter even than in the method. He urged 
the importance of phrenology, or a physiological 
account of the mind. He fully recognized the 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 245 

importance of those matters which come under the 
term Mesmerism. He suggested the homoeopathic 
character of medicine. He recognized the princi- 
ple urged by the author of " Vestiges of Creation," 
&c The highest object of a philosopher should 
be universality, and to attain to that state in which 
we may appreciate and enjoy all things ; recogniz- 
ing the true value and relations of every charac- 
ter, condition, and circumstance ; our knowledge 
being so full, and our enjoyments so high, that we 
regret nothing. A truly enlightened and noble 
mind would not be subject to grief. 

But our religious systems have done their part, 
for good and for evil. They are now lumber, 
blocking up the path of knowledge ; that knowl- 
edge which must push them all out of the way. 
A selfish theologian is not for this age. His theol- 
ogy prevents the admission of higher truths, and 
the development of man's nobler nature. Strange 
as it may appear, and impossible as it may seem to 
so many, the Christian religion is, in fact, and will 
soon be generally, recognized as no better than an 
old wife's fable. Those who make the Bible an ora- 
cle tell us that the earth was created 4000 years 
before Christ. Science declares that the piece of 
rock over which the waters of Niagara fall has 
taken at least 30.000 years to wear away. I should 
think Lyell a better authority than Moses on such 
a subject. That man is of the dust, and to the 
dust returns, is true ; and the dust itself may return 
to what it was before it was dust : but that the 
21* 



246 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

earth is cursed, and that labor is an evil, is not true. 
And what has become of Eden, and the tree of 
life preserved by the Cherubim at the eastern gate, 
and by the flaming sword which turned every 
way ? And it will one day be asked what has 
become of Christianity and Mohammedanism, and 
Judaism, and Buddhism, and Fohism. The Bible 
will be a curious and charming book for those days, 
when men will be burning all rubbish of theologies 
which fills our libraries. 

But here I am running on like an old gossip, 
when I simply wished to say, that to believe in a 
cause of the phenomena which we call Nature, and 
which constitutes the thinking man, seems essen- 
tial to all reasoning beings. I am far from being 
an Atheist, as resting on second causes. As well 
might we, resting on the earth, deny that there is 
any depth beneath, or, living in time deny eternity. 
I do not say, therefore, there is no God ; but that 
it is extravagant and irreverent to imagine that cause 
a Person. All we know is phenomena : and that 
the fundamental cause is wholly beyond our con- 
ception. In this I do not suspend my judgment : 
but rather assert plainly that of the motive power 
or principle of things we know absolutely nothing, 
and can know nothing : and that no form of words 
could convey any knowledge of it : and that no form 
of thought could imagine that which is wholly aside 
of Nature, (as Nature is to us,) and of the nature of 
the mind, and, as it were, behind the understanding. 
A " cause of causes " is an unfathomable mystery. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 247 

Phenomena necessarily have a certain form and 
order which we term Law. The most fundamen- 
tal and general law is what Bacon terms Forms. I 
cannot believe in a manufacturing God as implied 
in the idea of a Creator, and a creation ; nor can I 
believe in any beginning or end to the operations 
of Nature. The cause in nature or of nature is 
eternal and immutable. The earth and stars may 
pass away into other forms j but the law is eternal. 
Man, animals, plants, stones, are consequently in 
nature. The mind of Man, the instincts of ani- 
mals, the sympathies (so to speak) of plants, and 
the properties of stones, are results of material de- 
velopment j that development itself being a result 
of the properties of matter, and the inherent cause 
or principle which is the basis of matter. If to 
have this conception of things is to be an Atheist, 
then am I an Atheist. If to renounce all idolatry, 
and to repose upon the deep and solemn conviction 
of an eternal and necessary cause, — such a Cause 
as that, with our faculties, we could not know, or, 
as it is expressed, " could not see and live j" — if 
this be atheism or materialism, — be it so. I care 
not about terms. I hold that there never has been, 
or can be, any miracle, or interruption of the laws 
of nature : " for certain it is," says Bacon,* " that 
God worketh nothing in nature but by second 
causes : and if they would have it otherwise be~ 
lieved, it is mere imposture, as it were in favor 
towards God, and nothing else but to offer to the 

* Advancement of Learning, Book I. 



248 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie.' 5 
Spinoza was not an Atheist, but rather what he 
has been called, — " a god-intoxicated man." 

There is a vast number of superior minds which 
clearly see that all religions founded upon supposed 
revelations exhibit a low morality, and are unsup- 
ported by fact or history, but have not yet cleared 
themselves of self-delusion. They want more sup- 
port and companionship than they find in society, 
owing to this undeveloped nature and ignorance : 
and they imagine an ideal, and take the want for a 
proof of this ideal being real. Again, they have an 
instinct of life, and consider this a proof of a future 
existence, and say, " Plato, thou reasonest well ; 
else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, — - 
this longing after immortality." And thirdly, they 
feel themselves in a measure free, and have been 
accustomed to the untrue and immoral doctrine of 
moral responsibility ; and consider this sense of 
freedom and responsibility proof against mind being 
subject to law. In the same way they might say, 
being accustomed to wars, therefore war is right ; 
that their great ancestors painted their skins and 
ate one another ; and therefore to paint our skins 
and eat one another is right ; that we have a sense 
that the sun goes round the earth, and therefore 
Galileo was wrong. When our feelings guide 
reason, instead of reason searching into the cause 
of our feelings, thus it has been. — There is a ri- 
valry going on now between the insanity doctors 
and the judges. The doctor says, by the laws of 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SUPERSTITION. 249 

mind, this man is not responsible ; but the judge 
insists on opposing the laws of the land to the 
laws of nature, and declares the man a criminal. 
The newspapers take up the matter, and write about 
the shocking doctrine of a man not being able to 
resist an impulse : for newspapers but echo the 
opinions, prejudices, and ignorance of the world, or 
of a party. So the confusion goes on : and the 
most absurd contradictions and shifts occur in the 
courts of law ; and the question remains a difficulty, 
and as unsettled as ever. The question still is 
urged, what is the limit of Man's responsibility? 
You may as well try to ascertain the limits of time, 
and where eternity begins. The folly of all this 
is, that men judge by their feelings, and not by 
their reason and the fact : and again, from their 
want of faith in truth ; for they will say, " suppose 
this thing to be true, it is not wise to say so : " 
which is the presumption of human wisdom. A 
wise churchman hath said, " Whenever I perceive 
any glimmering of truth before me, I readily pursue, 
and endeavor to trace it to its source, without any 
reserve or caution of pushing the discovery too far, 
or opening too fresh a glare of it to the public." 

Until the philosophy of human nature be admitted 
among the sciences, and laws and material conditions 
of mind understood, it seems to me that we are little 
removed from savages, and are still living in the 
dark ages, — romancing rather than using our " gift 
of reason." All that a judge and jury have to 
ascertain is how a man has behaved : but it remains 



250 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

for wiser men than judges and juries at present are 
to say what treatment the moral patient requires ; 
the undergoing which treatment will be the best 
check upon other inferior natures. We must remove 
the gallows, and no more use the rod ■ for these 
are not instruments of reform and civilization, but 
the instruments of barbarism* and the cause of 
brutality. Hell drives men to despair and to mad- 
ness : the gallows ripens crime, and brutalizes and 
degrades a nation. How men can repeat the Lord's 
Prayer, and hang a man in the same breath, is 
astonishing, and exhibits the utter depravity of a 
Christian Legislation. 



XXI. 

THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE, 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

Ah ! how true it is that Christianity has not, as 
you say, Christianized the world ! There is some- 
thing curious in the spectacle of the embarrassment 
of every sect of Christians in accounting for this 
fact. I know no subject on which there is more 
miserable floundering among incompatible views 
and untenable assertions. From those who, with 
a foregone conclusion, set about estimating how 
much Christianity has done for the world, to those 

* Appendix X, 



THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 251 

who give the matter up, and declare the delay to 
be a mystery of Providence, I find none with whom 
I can for a moment agree. To me, the wonder 
would be if it had Christianized the world. Its 
unfitness for saving the race, — for a universal 
reception by mankind, — seems to be shown clearly 
enough by the rise of Mohammedanism, and by the 
spread of that faith so far beyond the extent that 
Christianity ever attained as to include, in our day, 
a fifth part of the whole human race. That religion, 
imperfect as we see it to be, met needs and gratified 
faculties, among certain races of men, which Chris- 
tianity wholly neglected. We are not of the races 
whose needs could be met by Mohammedanism : 
nor are we supplied, even on the most superficial 
view, by what Christianity offers us. As the omis- 
sion of a provision for the antagonistic at once with 
the fatalistic faculties of men made Mohammedan- 
ism necessary, so the neglect, amounting to dis- 
countenance, by Christ, of the- domestic passions 
and affections, nullifies its operation with us. After 
all the straining of divines to make the most of the 
Cana marriage, and of all incidental mention of any 
of the family relations of the disciples, there remains 
an unquestionable vacancy in regard to the passions 
and affections which are of the most importance in 
our life. It is not necessary that there should have 
been either teaching or sentiment in regard to the 
domestic institutions which are still of high im- 
portance among us : such as the conjugal and 
parental, as at present existing ; because these, and 



252 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

all groupings into households by the rule of mar- 
riage and blood relationship, may be easily conceived 
to be a matter of rule and arrangement, and there- 
fore of limited duration ; but the passions and 
affections of which these arrangements are the 
temporary form, seem not to be recognized by 
Christianity, — or, if at all, not in any proportion 
to their place among our faculties. — Yet more 
striking, perhaps, is the ignoring of the faculties, 
and their action, which are concerned in the pursuit 
of science and speculative truth. But there is no 
need to dwell on the particular omissions, while the 
fact is before us that Christianity has not Christian- 
ized the world, nor has the slightest prospect at 
present of doing so, — failing even to produce the 
remotest likeness of itself where it is most loved 
and honorod. From some once Christian nations 
it has avowedly died out : and among us, and in 
America, where it is supposed to be held in its 
highest purity, it fails to make men less worldly, 
more sincere, more courageous, or more kindly, 
than they are elsewhere. At home, we have bishops 
living in palaces, while hundreds and thousands of 
the people are neither taught nor duly fed : and in 
America, we see the clergy, and prayerful merchants 
and professional men, taking the aristocratic and 
oppressive side on the slavery question, — rushing 
to conquest, grasping at wealth, and indulging in a 
conceit and boasting as little compatible with the 
spirit of the Gospel as the march of a caravan to 
Mecca, or the fetish rites of the savage on the Niger 



THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 253 

or the Ganges. — And we have quite as much, 
happily, of the breaking out of the higher as of the 
lower impulses of men, in opposition to Christianity, 
or independence of it. We have " nature bursting 
through theology " in an upward, as well as a 
downward direction. What an insult it is to our best 
moral faculties to hold over us the promises and 
threats of heaven and hell, as if there were nothing 
in us higher # than selfish hope and fear ! Did you 
ever meet with those anecdotes of Wilberforce and 
Clarkson, which, put together, make one of the 
most instructive stories I know ? They give us the 
characters of the two friends, and offer us very 
much more. — Some one was one day praising 
Wilberforce to his face for his toils and sacrifices 
on behalf of the slave. " Oh ! you know I must," 
said the good man, who was quite unconscious how 
much better he was than the doctrine he professed. 
" You know I must do this work, for the sake of 
my salvation. I must save my immortal soul." 
At another time and place, a pious friend admonished 
Clarkson to attend to his religious duties, inquiring 
whether he had not been neglecting the safety of 
his immortal soul. " My soul ! " said the simple old 
man, as he sat rubbing his knees, with his. earnest, 
business-like look ; " why, I don't know. I have 
been so busy about these poor negroes, that I don't 
think I have thought at all about my own soul." 
Who would not have been the Clarkson here ? 
though we all know that Wilberforce was far above 

* Appendix Y. 
22 



254 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

being benevolent from selfishness, however he 
thought it his duty to persuade himself that such 
were his reasons. 

If it is argued that such views of Christianity as 
he held were corrupt, — that the primitive Chris- 
tianity did not promise and threaten the popular 
heaven and hell, I agree to the statemeut : but 
then the fact comes out clearer than ever, that, 
instead of saving men, Christianity has become 
corrupt, and tends to degrade them : — a liability 
which could not occur to a saving revelation. If 
it is now wanting in purity, and was always want- 
ing in universality, it seems perverse to claim for it 
the dignity of a revelation sent to save the human 
race. 

And then comes the obvious question which must 
always recur in regard to any revelation. Is that 
which is said to be revealed within the compass of 
the human faculties, or is it not ? If not, we have 
a mere jingle of words. If the matter cannot be 
received and comprehended, it is no revelation. 
If, on the other hand, it can be compassed by the 
human faculties, it could, of course, be attained by 
them through their natural action. The common 
escape from this question is by the assertion that 
revelation anticipates Man's natural knowledge. 
To say nothing of the bareness of the assumption 
here, it is clear that when the knowledge is arrived 
at in natural course, the revelation expires. It is 
proved an instrument of temporary use, and falls 
to pieces when done with; an end far different 



THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 255 

from that which is supposed to await Chris- 
tianity. 

But how very different from this is in truth the 
direction of our faculties ! How very far is the 
knowledge they give us from confirming the essen- 
tial doctrines of any religion declared to be re- 
vealed ! The history of the rainbow, as instanced 
in one of your letters, is a good epitome of the 
history of the connection of the universe with the 
mind of Man from the beginning. Every thing 
that moved, — every thing that was not permanent 
and stationary, — was at first a sign and a revela- 
tion, in the absence of science. From the moment 
when science was conceived of, the exorcism 
began ; and it has been going on ever since. 
Spirits have been driven out wherever she has 
turned her light, wherever she has fixed her gaze, 
wherever her firm and gentle voice has bidden 
them come forth, and trouble the timid no more. 
There is much yet to do ; but enough is done to 
show what must be the fate of all remaining 
dreams and delusions. The fresh dawn of science 
has for some time been brightening upon the night- 
mare period of theology ; and the full and perfect 
day is the surest prophecy afloat in the universe. 
The great step of all is achieved, — the learning 
what knowledge is. Even theologians have got 
so far as to struggle to show that science and reve- 
lation can be made to agree. In this, we know, 
they will not succeed ; but it is a" testimony to 
the strength and consideration which science has 



256 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

attained. While to those who are outside of the 
theological haze, the prospect of the issue appears 
as clear as the horizon at noonday, it is a strange 
spectacle to them to witness the tumult caused by- 
Popish aggression, and other quarrels within the 
theological enclosure, at the same time that a power 
greater than that of Pope or Prerogative, of Coun- 
cils or Churches, is steadily advancing to the over- 
throw of them all. It should, however, be called 
rather a renovation than an overthow : for Science 
can abolish nothing but what is unreal ; and then, 
only in order to substantiate what is real. Her 
office is to take out the vital principle from forms, 
once beautiful, when they begin to grow hideous 
with age, and to transfuse it into new forms of 
beauty which we may love without fear and with- 
out disgust. She comes to relieve us from our hag- 
ridden state, and to bring about us forms as fresh 
as the morning, and as beautiful as the spring, 
When we see the Pope and the Church about to 
fly off, — two old witches on broomsticks, — it is 
an odd sight to see their wrangling before they 
start ; and but for the genuine affections and serious 
moral associations of so many persons that are 
involved in the struggle, it would be purely ludi- 
crous. 

I have run on till I may have reminded you, to 
my own disadvantage, of Bacon's warning not to 
think about^ theology when pursuing science, or 
science when pursuing theology. But I believe it 
has been natural to us both, and even inevitable, 



CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. 257 

to contemplate theology to the extent that we have 
done, because it is at present an impediment in the 
way of science. We do not turn aside after it, I 
think ; but finding it in our way, we discuss it, 
and pass on. Will you now pass on to the ques- 
tions I asked you? — about the connection between 
light and sight ; and about how you conceive our 
consciousness of identity to run through all our 
life, while the material of life is incessantly chan- 
ging ; and also about how you conceive we may 
set to work to imagine the manner of the fact that 
we know to be fact, — that dying people impress 
others at a distance with a knowledge, by sen- 
sation, that the process of death is taking place ? 



XXII. 

CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. — LIGHT. 
— SENSE OF IDENTITY. — GHOST-SEEING. -. 
UNREVEALED HUMAN RELATIONS. 

H. G. A. to H. M. 

How natural it was for men to use false similes ! 
for instance, to liken to the making of a loaf of 
bread the material existence and growth of the corn 
out of which the bread was made. We are so apt 
to forget that man creates nothing ; that to invent 
or make, is but to place materials in juxtaposition ; 
and that Nature does all the rest ! All the effects 
22* 



258 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of Nature, and all the doings of Man, who is part 
of Nature, are the consequents of the interaction 
of matter, of the influence of body on body. 
Science has brought us to this ; and we must not 
let the truth escape us. " The mind of Man," says 
Bacon, " is like an enchanted glass ; full of super- 
stition and imposture, if it be not delivered and 
reduced." — "Nay,* it is not credible, till it be 
opened, what a number of fictions and fancies 
the similitude of human action and arts, together 
with making of Man communis mensura, have 
brought into natural philosophy, not much better 
than the heresy of the anthropomorphites,bred in the 
cells of gross and solitary monks ; and the opinions 
of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathen- 
ism, who supposed the gods to be in human shape. 
And therefore, Velleius, the Epicurean, needed not 
to have asked why God should have adorned the 
heaven with stars, as if he had been an JEdilis ; 
one that should have set forth some magnificent 
shows or plays. For if that great Workmaster had 
been of a human disposition, he would have cast 
the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works 
and orders, like the frets in roofs of houses ; where- 
as one can scarce find a posture in square, or tri- 
angle, or straight line, among such an infinite num- 
ber ; so differing a harmony there is between the 
spirit of Man, and the spirit of Nature." 

In the infancy of knowledge, men look upon 
the growth of a tree and the birth of an animal as 



Advancement of Learning. Idols of the Mind. 



s 



CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. 259 

miraculous. The bursting forth of the foliage in 
Spring is as if the earth had been touched by the 
wand of a magician : as if a great magician had 
said, " Let there be new growth and beauty over 
the earth ; " and growth and beauty were. The 
sunset was the showing forth of glory, and the 
stimulus to praise and worship. The rainbow and 
the eclipse are as signs in the heavens. The sun 
is made to shine for man : the moon and the myr- 
iad stars are lights set up to shine for man, — the 
lamp-lighting for the night's use. It was yet to be 
known that the sun which was to rule the day, was 
the cause of the day. Day and night, it was said, 
were created on the first day, and the sun, moon, 
and stars on the fourth day. It was not known 
that the sun, and the earth, and moon, are but atoms 
in the universe. The thunder was the voice of 
the Great Spirit ; the lightning, the thunderbolt, 
was the instrument of his vengeance. The Great 
Spirit was busy in the battle-field, and the plague 
was the effect of his wrath. Misfortunes and good 
fortune were all the doings of the Great Spirit. — 
Under such ideas, men blindly submitted to an in- 
scrutable destiny, and believed in the most fatal of 
fatalisms. Or, if they exerted themselves, it was 
in prayer and beseechings ; in offerings, to propitiate 
their offended God. Science is gradually leading 
through these notions of the cave into open day- 
light, by showing the undeviating laws of nature : 
and thus men are gradually drawn out of the church 
into the lecture-room. The divine will become 



260 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

the philosopher ; and the philosopher the divine. 
Knowledge is power, and rules the mind, as well 
as enables the mind to rule. In a transition state, 
men may reject innovation, and storm, and feel 
deeply shocked, and most indignant at the new 
doctrine ; while Science, like the needle, guides 
them through the darkness, and shows the cause 
of the storm, and how the storm of the mind is 
related to the storm in the clouds ; how they are 
the same footprints of Nature on different surfaces 
or spheres. 

From a knowledge of particular laws, we gain a 
notion of universal Law : and from this occurs the 
idea of a Unity in Nature, just as from the finite 
we suppose the infinite, and universality. I remem- 
ber when a youth, sitting on the marble rocks of 
Devonshire, to rest, after investigating the nature 
of the marbles and the plants of the district. I 
had observed that certain dark veins in the marble 
must have been cracks, filled up by vegetable 
deposits, which afterwards became stone : and then 
I thought of the diamond which I had been told 
was convertible into charcoal : and I picked up a 
blade of grass and asked myself, " What was this a 
month ago ? And those sheep, — what were they 
a few months ago ? And myself, — what was I a 
few years back ? And will not the grass grow 
fresh upon my grave when I am dead ? And what 
was the substance of the globe before it took the 
form of chalk and clay and silex, — vegetables and 
. thinking substances ? " And I became impressed 






CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. 261 

with the fact that Nature is one, and that all things 
are but varieties of the same material : and I was 
elated with the idea, which seemed to me to be of 
vast consequence ; and I determined to collect 
specimens and facts to illustrate the notion. I was 
not then aware that the notion was as old as the 
hills ; that the ancients, with less facts to support 
them, had thought the same ; and that the alche- 
mists, in the same belief, were seeking how to con- 
vert one substance into another. 

Science is now affording proof of what was be- 
fore only conjecture ; though a conjecture having 
the appearance of a necessary consequence or fact. 
Liebig says,* " Isomorphism, or the quality of form 
of many chemical compounds having a different 
composition, tends to prove that matter consists of 
atoms, the mere arrangement of which produces all 
the properties of bodies. But when we find that 
a different arrangement of the same elements gives 
rise to various physical and chemical properties, 
and a similar arrangement of different elements 
produces properties very much the same, may we 
not inquire whether some of those bodies which 
we regard as elements, may not be merely modifi- 
cations of the same substance, whether they are 
not the same matter in different states of arrange- 
ment ? " &c Thus we draw the circle of facts 
closer and closer f to the centre, which is Unity. 
In this centre the Mind holds its position, and is 
enabled to take in the whole range of facts. Not 

* Chemical Letters, p. 54. f Appendix Z. 



262 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

as before, to be whirling round and round in a 
little eddy of fact ; but floating down the wide 
stream of knowledge. Bacon was very near the 
centre of the circle : and consequently, how few 
have understood him ! But, while we dilate the 
sight in the sense of the unity of Nature, and the 
relations of the sciences, we must not forget to 
contract the sight to every particular and circum- 
stance ; that nothing may be omitted, and Nature 
may be searched for the truth which is said to lie 
at the very bottom of the well : for that which 
is most potent, and has most the character of 
universality, is most hid, and least palpable to the 
ordinary sense, indolently applied. — Bacon com- 
pared knowledge to a pyramid : physical facts 
nearest the base, and gradually narrowing and 
rising to metaphysics : and again, to a tree, in 
which there is no division ; but all the branches 
form a whole, and unite in one stem. And this is 
the true cosmical view of Nature : the sense of 
variety in unity, and unity in variety : the whole 
in the parts, and the parts in the whole ; all of one 
growth and origin, and consequently presenting 
those true correspondences, exhibiting the same 
law under various aspects, and all evolved, and 
fitting together as closely as the seal to the print, 
each symbolical of all, and all of each. 

As it is with the conditions of matter, so it is 
with the properties of matter. It is now recognized 
by Faraday and others, that all the properties of 
matter are but various conditions of the same : that 



CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. 263 

• 

light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affin- 
ity, &c, are convertible, or evolved one by the 
other. This wondrous fact is now exhibited, daily, 
at the Polytechnic Institution. Decompose one 
grain of water, and the power which held the par- 
ticles of gas together in the form of water evolves 
into as much electricity as we have exhibited in 
an ordinary thunder-storm. Electricity is evolved 
in a most brilliant light which lives under water, 
the decomposing or consuming substance being at 
a distance ; and the influence or power passes 
unobserved along the wire, and is manifested at 
the end. Thus flame is not, as was supposed, a 
heated substance in the ordinary sense. Instead 
of light, intense heat may be made to occur or 
magnetism. The lecturer suggests the question, — 
What is electricity, light, heat, &c. ? The cause, 
he says, is not yet discovered : but he would more 
properly have said that the cause never could be 
discovered : that we know only the form of matter, 
and not its cause. So, likewise, we know only the 
form or character of the phenomena of matter, and 
the order of its development. The cause is mate- 
rial, that is, inherent in what we call substance. 
We know no more ; nor can we know more. All 
that we can know is the form of the conditions, 
and the form of the effects — the laws. More we 
neither know nor can know. It is the real and 
fundamental law and conditions of the fact that we 
want to know : and this we may know. Elec- 
tricity, light, heat, are not fluids, but forms of 



264 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

action, — the same as common motion or force. 
By friction, new chemical powers are given to the 
homoeopathic medicines. Squeeze a pear, and it 
becomes sweet. By friction, light, heat, electricity, 
or magnetism is evolved. And what are the in- 
stinct of animals and the mind of man but a result 
of chemical action or material process ? What is 
mind but an evolved condition or form of the 
powers of nature, like light, heat, magnetism ? — a 
form of the phenomena of the fundamental power 
which is acting throughout nature, and may, per- 
haps, be said to constitute nature. Mind, that is, 
thought, and sensation, which we term mind, pass 
away like light, and influence things without. 
Mind is but a transient condition : and memory 
but acquired forms. Light evolves thought ; and 
thought again evolves light. Mind evolves motion 
in the limbs ; and motion again evolves thought. 
Mind acts on the body as light and heat act on the 
material from which they are evolved, (a lamp or 
candle, for instance,) and help the evolution of 
fresh heat and light. Disturb the chemical actioa 
of the body through the stomach or lungs, or by 
electricity, and you disturb or paralyze the mind's 
action ; or the disturbed mental action will derange 
the action of the body. In the one case, you may 
have idiocy or insanity ; in the other, a liver com- 
plaint. 

When I say the mind is a function of brain, I 
mean no more than when I say that the brilliant 
electric light I see under water is a result or prop- 



CENTRAL LAW AND PERVASIVE UNITY. 265 

erty of certain materials under particular conditions. 
The light and the mind are equally phenomena, 
and the cause or nature of both is equally obscure : 
and both are phenomena evolved or existing during 
the consumption or change going on in matter. 
But light, magnetism, mind, &c, though evolved 
by the action of matter, are conveyed by solid 
bodies, and through space, to other bodies at a 
distance. Thoughts pass from one brain, and 
become consciousness in another brain. This we 
call sympathy of minds, or thought-reading. Now 
the question occurs, What is the medium through 
or by which power of any form is conveyed from 
one body to another ? We say, that electricity is 
conveyed by a wire, and sound by the air : but 
these are very shallow notions. We have yet to 
learn whether there be a universal medium, or 
different media interfused for each distinct charac- 
ter of power, or cardinal motion ; and if these 
phenomena of light, electricity, mind, &c, are 
actions from solid matter to this medium, or if 
there be a spirit contained and close about all 
bodies ; and particularly from animals, and man's 
brain, and the action first taking place in this : or 
if all effects are from an agitation, as it were, 
of the universal medium or media pervading all 
things, and all space ; — if bodies, animate or inan- 
imate, have a particular evolved or eliminated spirit 
condition, which is acted upon by the body on one 
side, and by impressions through the universal 
medium condition on the other. 
23 



266 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

Bat body does not act directly on body, we know, 
because bodies do not touch : and, therefore, it is 
clear, that whatever the spiritual condition or con- 
ditions be, all actions are by and through such 
spirit conditions. Therefore, in fact, solid body 
does not act on body in any case, nor spirit on 
body : but spirit acts on or in spirit, and through 
spirit. Perhaps, in the end, it may be seen that 
some of those that are called Materialists are the 
most spiritual in their notions ; and those that pride 
themselves on their spiritualism, are, in reality, the 
Materialists ; who talk of gross materialism, and, at 
the same time evoke their God material, as he sits 
on his throne ; who talk disparagingly of human 
affections, and human wisdom, and poor human 
nature, and, at the same time, fashion their God in 
their own likeness. They scoff at those who may 
be too spiritual to bend to their idolatry, or yield 
to the ruinous influence of custom and formalism. 
To see how men are dead while they yet live, and 
how they are wise in their own conceit, and pure in 
their own wisdom, — is it not enough to make one 
mourn, and almost despair of progress ? and of that 

. . . . " Philosophy which is 

Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 

But musical as is Apollo's lute " ? 

And thousands have despaired, and been content to 
listen to the sweet strains of an indolent philosophy, 
because they have overlooked causes, or mistaken 
the plan of Nature, and the universal application 
of inductive science. 



LIGHT. 267 

I wish that I could give you a satisfactory reply 
to your questions respecting the nature of Light. I 
believe that the different theories of undulations and 
vibrations, and darting corpuscules, &c, must all 
dissolve away before the simple facts of the case ; 
just as ghosts and demons, and spiritual influences, 
and retributive judgments, &c, vanish before the 
light which we now bring upon mental science. It 
seems certain that two things cannot occupy the 
same space at the same time, unless we suppose with 
Kant, that Space is a mere fiction. It seems, also, 
that two similar actions or conditions, — two similar 
diseases, for instance, cannot exist in action in the 
same body at the same time, and that we must have 
different organs for the different mental powers, and 
for conveying sensation and motion ; and, indeed, 
for each distinct function of our nature. The 
intellect is working in one part, and the affections 
in another ; the consciousness and will in a third ; 
benevolence in a fourth ; and so on ; while a train 
of impressions to the brain cannot run along the 
same rail which is, at the same time, conveying 
a baggage-train of muscular force outwards from 
the brain. 

These seem to be recognized facts ; and yet, 
with regard to impressions from object to object in 
those influences which have been called " immaterial 
virtues," we come to a fact which seems to be 
wholly at variance with the rule. For instance, ] 
hold up a pin's point ; and the influence from this 
point fills the whole space of the room, bearing upon 



268 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

every point of matter on the objects and walls around 
which face it : — and beyond this : — but so much 
is palpable. Yet, at the same time, and in the same 
space, and in direct lines, come impressions from all 
this surface around to the pin point. And if the 
pin point was multiplied by millions, and the surface 
around extended, every point of the space would 
contain a direct impression from every point of 
surface. In fact, the whole surface and the whole 
space would contain impressions from every point, 
and each point the impression of the whole : and 
these impressions (for the most part, at least) have 
to pass in opposite directions in the same lines in 
space. And this would be the case, not only in 
regard to light, but to heat, sound, magnetism, and 
every shade of color : indeed, of all the characters 
of all the influences present, — to say nothing of 
the secondary or diffused effects. 

To every point that the sun shines upon comes a 
direct ray or line of impression from every point 
of the surface of the sun which is presented towards 
us. How impressions coming in direct lines from 
point to point widen as the space extends is another 
difficulty, which I do not think has yet been solved. 
All seem to consider it necessary that there should 
be an ether, or medium of some sort, pervading 
space, and communicating impressions from body to 
body : and certainly a material medium between 
bodies does seem essential, unless you assume 
immateriality. But not matter and nothing are 
terms for the same nonentity. When we are in 



LIGHT. 269 

want of a something, we cannot fall back upon 
nothing. Can we for a moment suppose, for in- 
stance, light to be an action without body moving 
through empty space ? No, we require a substance 
to convey a motion or energy from one body to 
another. But what kind of substance can this ether 
be ? for, if the particles touch, it would seem it 
must be a solid : and if they do not touch, what 
conveys the action from particle to particle ? or, are 
there no particles ? is there no embodiment at all ? 
Thus we shall have to come to the fact, humbling 
to some, that that which is beyond the senses is 
beyond the understanding. — Ask the wisest man 
" what is mind ? " or " instinct ? " or " the principle 
of the form of things ? " " What is light ? What is 
matter? What is power, or space, or time?" And 
he will tell you that his wisdom in this is the 
wisdom of Socrates, in perceiving that he knows 
nothing. Or he will reply that mind is mind, light 
is light, time is time, &c. : that knowledge consists 
in the perception of things as they are to us, and in 
recognizing the relations of things in the order of 
nature : and that all inquiries as to what things 
really are, are fruitless. The higher laws, those 
more fundamental, universal, and operative, will be 
discovered only by acute inductive reasoning upon 
accumulated experience of the obscurer workings 
of Nature. No one can grasp the infinite, — in 
space, in time, or in causation. — Of the funda- 
mental principle of things we know nothing. We 
are just like one startled from sleep in the midst 
23* 



270 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of the night, glancing round by the light of a 
taper: — the beginning and the end, the past and 
the future, are all wonder and darkness : nor can 
we know any thing of the subtle actions of Nature 
beyond what our senses give us, of which our reason 
is able to judge as by a second sight. Many, upon 
such considerations, have left experience altogether, 
and rushed into metaphysics and scepticism, or 
think themselves wiser and more secure under 
some religious faith : because men will not be con- 
tent to rest on what they know, and what it is 
possible for them to know : but they will follow 
after any phantom that is presented to them, and 
leave Nature, which will disclose to them far more 
wonderful things than they can imagine. 

I think that much confusion is caused by en- 
deavoring to understand remote things by those that 
are near, — the cause by the result, — the impon- 
derable by the ponderable, &c. : that which is 
insensible by that which is sensible ; the whole by 
a part ; the universal by a particular mode or form ; 
the future by the present, &c. : instead of observ- 
ing the order of things, and judging accordingly. 
That which is too subtle for the sense must be 
judged of by the circumstances, or by experiment. 
How could we infer the laws of the atmosphere or 
the winds from a heap of pebble stones ; or the 
laws of fluids from a rock of granite ? How ab- 
surd then to liken the action of a supposed subtle 
ether, of inconceivable nature and rarity, to waves 
and vibrations ! — No waves or vibrations can 



LIGHT. 271 

explain the actions which result in mind ; nor the 
action which is the cause of vibrations and waves ; 
nor the infinite action going on in the universal 
medium. — We must begin our inquiries afresh : 
free from all scientific or theological hypotheses 
whatever, or be sure that our hypothesis does not 
warp the judgment on the facts as we find them. 

In considering the question of media, and how 
that which we require to be in closer contact, if 
not absolute union, can be " imperceptible to our 
senses, we may note that gold is more porous than 
less dense substances ; that ice contains less matter 
in the same bulk than cold water: — musk seems 
to fill the space around continuously without losing 
weight : and the smallest portion of coloring mat- 
ter will pervade a whole butt of water. Con- 
sidering these instances, we shall not be oppressed 
by notions of infinite division, and the existence 
of subtle media : or that each distinct action, or 
cardinal motion, may have a distinct medium to 
itself, that there may be as many media as there 
are characters of action, each pervading each, and 
all existing together in a way too subtle for our 
sense and understanding. We must acknowledge 
that the nature of such media, and their action, 
are wholly incomprehensible. We might suppose 
particles moving, as in a row of billiard balls, — 
as when you strike the ball at one end, and the 
farthest one flies off, the intermediate balls remain- 
ing unmoved : or we may imagine elasticity, as in 
a fluid confined in a vessel, when a pressure on any 



272 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

part is communicated with equal force through the 
whole mass. But these observations only approach 
the subject, and leave us still with the puzzle of a 
thousand influences, crossing from all directions, 
existing in the same point at the same time, and 
passing in opposite directions without interfering ; 
with the puzzle, again, of a body capable of re- 
flection and refraction, passing clear through crystal 
without apparent diminution : as electricity passes 
through a wire a thousand miles long or thick. 
Common air seems a very subtle and incomprehen- 
sible form of substance ; but it is blocks of granite 
compared to the subtlety of this medium, which 
seems to be a totally distinct, but unknown, con- 
dition of matter. This medium, too, must be requi- 
site even to convey action through air. 

You see how little I can reply to your question, 
except by raising difficulties, and showing our ig- 
norance : but, happily, the strangeness or the diffi- 
culty of one matter often throws light upon another. 
The principle of a whole being influenced or 
leavened by each part, and each part by the whole, 
will aid us in the explanation of matters otherwise 
incomprehensible : such as that a portion of the 
seed of a plant or animal under appropriate 
circumstances is developed into a similar plant 
or animal ; and, where individual peculiarities 
are repeated, the peculiarity often continuing in a 
latent form, to be reproduced only in a third or 
fourth generation. — For the spontaneous genera- 
tion of the higher animals and plants, the fitting 



LIGHT. 273 

conditions do not seem now to exist on this globe. 

— Again, the fact that the various influences or 
appearances of a landscape, or of an object, be- 
come evolved in the mind at once, in the form of 
an individual or general idea, comes under the 
same class : and again, that somnambules should 
read the whole influence from a person, and even 
his entire history, from a touch, or from a bit of 
hair, or even from such an object as a piece of 
leather touched by the person ; or from the influ- 
ence hanging about another individual, who has 
been in company with, or otherwise influenced by, 
the person in question. — Here we find the princi- 
ple of memory, and how it is that in such cases as 
that of the Swiss historian Zschokke * the history 
of a stranger is brought under review, just as if the 
memory of one person was transferred to another. 

— Here again we recognize a basis for palmistry 
and future seeing ; — facts, of course, like all other 
facts, — medicine, for instance, — affording wide 
opportunity for imposition, assumption, and folly. 

— How marvellous is the influence of a homoeo- 
pathic infinitesimal substance as an infection through 
the whole nervous system ! and how complete is 
the influence of the system on the new matter 
which we take in to compensate for waste ! How 
marvellous that the habits and memories which age 
effects are continually transferred to fresh matter ! 
Men marvel at the contagious, subduing, infusing, 
or leavening power of mesmerism ; as if we were 

* Appendix A. 



274 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

not continually emitting the force and condition of 
ourselves ! The very throwing of a stone is the 
transmitting the power from the arm to the stone, 
for the hand does not absolutely touch the stone. 
All your thoughts and your whole condition, and 
those of thousands of others, may be lying latent 
in my constitution at this moment, if I had ability 
to recognize them, as the contagion of disease is 
carried about by one person, without his being con- 
scious of it, and communicated to another, whom 
it destroys. And how wondrous those storms of 
vital force, or other (so to term it) electric condition, 
which produce cholera, scarlet fever, or the potato 
disease ! And what are these diseases ? Whence 
come they, and what are their laws? And why 
does not the influence affect all equally ? And 
why is one particular species of plant or animal 
carried off at one time, and other species at another ? 
Those who will not believe unless they have 
reason, and who object to mesmerism because it 
does not influence all equally, let them answer this. 
Men's minds are so beset with " gross materialism," 
with their concrete and mechanical notions, that 
they shrink from the obscure, imponderable agents, 
and the study of vital action, and the real powers 
of Nature, as if it were " the night side of Nature," 
and the sphere of ghosts. Nor will they stoop to 
consider the kind of evidence required, and the 
method adapted to a new inquiry. Matteucci, 
Reichenbach, and others, are now doing for us 
some good work in the right direction. — Reichen- 



LIGHT. 275 

bach's experiments are most usefully made, and 
most important ; but I do not agree with our friend 
Professor Gregory in supposing that they give any 
explanation of mesmeric action, beyond what the 
facts of mesmerism had shown before. We were 
familiar with the fact that sensitive patients could 
see flames and other light, and feel influence from 
people, and magnets, crystals, and other materials, 
not appreciable by the ordinary sense powers, before 
these German experiments. We knew that their 
influence did not exhibit the form of magnetism or 
electricity. Do not suppose that I am undervaluing 
the beautiful and varied experiments of Reichen- 
bach. — Possibly objections may be raised in regard 
to some of the effects, on account of a mesmeric 
influence or contagion imparted to the objects used, 
or of an influence on the mind of the patient. I 
do not say it is so : but it seems to be likely. The 
value of such experiments will be greatly enhanced 
by a full recognition of such objections. The great 
point is, as Reichenbach strenuously insists, to have 
the experiments repeated under various circum- 
stances, and by individuals of different tempera- 
ments. — I am sorry that Reichenbach has not 
appreciated the facts of Phrenology. 

It is to be remarked that rays of light, emanating 
from one and the same source, but with a different 
length of path, destroy each other> — produce dark- 
ness. Light has the character of being diffused ; 
and yet it passes in straight lines. How it is that 
we perceive the luminous object in the direction 



276 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

that light comes to the eye$ even when bent, as in 
reflection ; and at the distance the light has travelled 
that we see an object in the place in which it is, is 
not understood ; and whether we see into space 
when there is no object before us, — whether we 
do really see into space when looking at the sky, 
for instance, any more than we do when we seem 
to see into darkness on closing our eyes, is to me a 
question. Sound is heard as in the place from 
which it comes ; and, as happens with light, it 
indicates direction, as well as distance. Why does 
it not sound all along the passage from the object to 
the brain ? The condition of action in the object 
must be different from the influence sent forth ; and 
it evolves in the spirit of the brain an action we 
term sound, which corresponds to the original action 
in the sounding body, somewhat in the same way 
as when a sounding body influences another body, 
with a corresponding action or sound. In the same 
way, light seems to put in action the light-condition 
of other bodies, and enables us to see them, as we 
hear the responding sounding body. Touch, pain 
in the muscular sense, &c, convey a knowledge of 
locality and space also. Sound influences the air 
and solid bodies ; but it seems to me most absurd 
to suppose that sound is caused by the motion 
of air. It is no more so than electricity passing 
through a wire is caused by the moving wire, 
though air, as a solid body, may be as essential to 
the conveyance of sound, as the wire to the con- 
veyance of the electricity. When a gun goes off, I 



LIGHT. 277 

feel no motion of air against my face ; and yet the 
mere sound has broken the window, and caused the 
framework to rattle. Is it not by the subtle spirit 
pervading all bodies and space that all power and 
action occur ? — sound, electricity, heat, light, mind, 
&c. Is it not all the energy of nature acting by 
this spirit ? Bacon thought that the spirit evolved 
from the body is the body of the mind ; that, as 
the body is to this spirit, so is this spirit to mind. 
Newton could not get on without supposing a 
universal interstellar medium. Our senses do not 
perceive it ; but the facts require it, and reason 
infers it. The brain does not think ; nor does the 
bell ring ; but the spirit does all. The ball does 
not move ; but is moved by the energy let loose by 
the decomposing of the gunpowder. Such being 
the case, you will understand that the sense of 
sound would be a true impression and correspond- 
ence with the action of the body, or spirit-condition 
of the body without. That the mind sometimes 
hears sounds from an internal activity or stimulus, 
only shows a capacity to be impressed in a certain 
way, as it has been acted upon before. The im- 
pression of hearing corresponds with the action or 
condition heard. Seeing precisely corresponds with 
what we see. It is as the seal to the impression. 
As sounds correspond with colors, so much more 
does the subjective correspond with the objective. 
The chair is one thing, and what I see as the chair 
is another, no doubt : but the proportions and rela- 
tions in the object and the subject are the same : — 
24 



278 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

as much so, and infinitely more so, than the likeness 
we take by the sun resembles the object. Seeing 
is an interaction of the subtle conditions of nature, 
an exact corresponding of the object and the sub- 
ject. Electro-magnetism, acting on the direction 
of the polarized ray of light, produces modifications 
like chemical mixtures. By scratching the surface 
of a piece of metal, so as to have a given number 
of lines in a given space, we can cause the same 
substance to appear of any color we please. Heat 
will produce all the colors from the same substance. 
Color therefore seems only to represent a particular 
condition or texture. 

Light and sound, out of the sense, of course are 
but forces or motions : and the whole universe is, 
in reality, absolute darkness and solemn universal 
silence. The subjective corresponds with what 
light indicates, rather than with light, which is but 
a medium or form of communication. If I am told 
that I have no right to infer the objective from the 
subjective, . I reply, "Very well: then, you who 
object must believe only in your own mind, and 
that only in the impression that is then passing." 
Idealism forces itself to this position, where I am 
content to leave it, to meditate how the thought 
that is past may be a delusion of the present, and 
how the future may not come. The important 
thing for us is to ascertain relations and laws ; not 
what things are, or how mind differs from matter. 
We must consider things as we find them. Light, 
sound, color, taste, smell, touch, indicate condition : 



LIGHT. 279 

and those conditions, differences, or relations indi- 
cated are true. This is what we call knowledge ; 
and it is equally important and efficient, whatever 
may be our opinions in regard to the subject and 
the object. 

There is an electric character in Light ; and 
influences are constantly existing from all bodies 
irrespective of the light condition ; or the sense to 
receive a certain amount of force we term ordinary 
light or seeing. As all influences are but different 
conditions of the same, and may evolve each, it is 
no wonder that an electric condition may evolve 
the mental condition of sight, and produce seeing 
in the dark. By considering what I have said 
before in connection with this, clairvoyance does 
not seem quite so unintelligible, to the extent that 
ordinary sight is intelligible. 

Moser's experiment of the influence of objects 
on metal plates in the dark is very instructive. 
However, I must not venture on the subject of the 
different characters of Light. The subject is too 
wide : but, in reply to your question, I may say 
here that the effect of the electric light being 
different from common light is shown by a wheel 
revolving with celerity sufficient to render its 
spokes invisible. When illuminated by a flash of 
lightning, it is seen for an instant with all its 
spokes distinct, as if it were in a state of absolute 
repose. Your not seeing the comet and the sea is 
a very interesting fact. I have experienced the 
same inability on some occasions myself, when the 



280 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

mind seemed to lose its power and concentration, 
somewhat in the way that it loses a word and 
cannot recall it. I remember a lady whose mind 
is not very collected under excitements, at Ascot 
Races, looking anxiously to see the Emperor of 
Russia driven past. He drove past, a few yards 
from us. We had a capital sight of him ; but this 
lady saw nothing. She might as well have been 
at home. If emotions so blind the sense, how 
much more do they obscure the understanding ! 
When any interest or prejudice is stronger than the 
love of truth, truth will suffer. The blindness, 
both as regards the sense and the mind, often arises 
from our looking for something different from the 
fact. And again, we often invest an object with a 
form it has not, or evidence with conclusions fore- 
gone. How careful we should be to keep the mind 
steady and clear ! 

You wish to know how our consciousness of 
continued Identity is to be accounted for, whilst 
our whole frame (and every organ of the brain 
among the rest) is incessantly undergoing waste 
and renewal. The sense of Identity seems to 
follow as a consequence from the sense of Person- 
ality or Individuality. It \is a fact of the Memory, 
presenting similitude, or sameness of impression. 
Memory is a recurrence of impressions. Habit is 
a form of memory. Fits are a form of habit, and 
often have relation to time. To identify myself 
as an Englishman is a habit of thought. In certain 



SENSE OF IDENTITY. 281 

states of the nerves a man may know or believe as 
a fact that which he no longer has a sense of, or 
can identify in feeling. The I which .represents 
the individualism seems to arise from a faculty 
whose organ is situated near to the Conscious sense 
and the Will, and close beneath Self-esteem and 
Firmness. " I think ; therefore I am," is a con- 
clusion from the Conscious sense and the sense of 
Personality. The organ of Personality is a central 
organ, and its function a collective sense like the 
perceptive individuality. Love is this sense of 
being and personality blending with another exist- 
ence ; two in one. In cases of doubt or divided 
consciousness, this sense of identity loses its single 
form, and is usually accompanied by the loss of 
memory, — the memory of one of the lives or 
states. Mesmerized persons often speak of them- 
selves as of another individual, and regard, again, 
this intuitive character as another person, and speak 
of it as " the voice," &c, telling them so and so. 
In some cases, the patient may be thrown into sev- 
eral conditions ; and in each assume a new and 
separate identity. As there are different states of 
magnetism and of light, and as chemical affinity 
may become electricity, and electricity magnetism, 
so these brain states, or, as it were, spheres of 
action, have their changes, each state having an 
individuality, like a separate existence. 

It would be difficult to identify one's self in 
another bodily form, as in a new mental form, even 
with the help of Memory. I can hardly identify 
24* 



282 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

myself with my condition of childhood ; nor in a 
calm moment feel myself to be the same as when 
under the influence of any passion. It is the same 
power which, in one state, is love or hate ; in 
another, obstinacy ; in another, generosity, or the 
sense of color, &c. I think we shall, in time, trace 
forms of mind, corresponding with those of light 
and sound, and material forms, &c. Oosmical 
inquiries must lead to this, and exhibit the true 
cardinal forms of nature, with general and funda- 
mental laws, on which the whole depends. We 
must examine Nature as a whole, if we would 
discover the fundamental principles of Nature, and 
comprehend the analogical bearings of the whole, 
and why apparently remote things resemble each 
other. Then, indeed, shall we find that knowledge 
is powers and poetry, and delight ; and be elevated 
into the noble position of manhood, passing out of 
all conventionalities into the solemn and glorious 
path of intelligence and pure reason. The intuitive 
faculty will then become as an instrument of light 
to the understanding. 

You have heard of this new calculating man. I 
wonder what those who find it hard to admit any 
power beyond ordinary sense impressions and rea- 
son, make of such undeniable facts as these. 

I think I have explained before, that the renewal 
of the matter of the brain is a gradual process, and 
that the new material takes the character of that 
to which it joins company ; — in the same manner 
in the brain, of course, as in the liver or the lungs. 



SENSE OF IDENTITY. 283 

If I can influence another person to think as I 
think, or to imagine himself a candle, or a wild 
beast, or to acquire my condition of memory, it 
is easy to understand that new particles become 
immediately leavened by the old, and that no 
change would be perceptible. The new material 
would evolve wisdom or imbecility, or disease or 
age, as the case may be. Each organ seems to 
evolve or induce that spirit-condition which is the 
basis of its particular faculty : and thus, faculties 
blend as colors blend, and change with the condi- 
tions ; or as sounds blend in a general harmony. 
Each sense faculty is adapted to receive the pecu- 
liar influence or impression to which it relates ; but 
the instrumentality or intervention of the external 
sense does not seem always requisite. The internal 
faculties appear to be loosened from the sense, and 
to receive impressions direct from without ; to be 
open to conditions to which the senses were not 
fitted. It does not seem to be any strain upon 
reason to suppose this. Few can give an account 
of the process by which they come at many of 
their conclusions ; any more than the calculating 
boy Bidder could of the process by which he ar- 
rived at his conclusions. Clairvoyance or prophecy 
is no greater step from our ordinary condition than 
seeing would be to a blind person, who would say, 
" I could only take up Nature bit by bit before, 
and put these bits together, and then form but a 
very imperfect conception : but now I recognize 
all at once ; the distant, as well as that which is 



284 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

near." You set free the inner faculties, and open 
" the eye of the mind " to the outward influences 
of the grosser sense ; and knowledge flows in un- 
obstructed. You are as one who was blind, but 
can now see. The new sense and the old are 
equally intelligible, and both inexplicable. You 
cannot explain a process where there is none. The 
imperfect sense, the blind have a process to explain : 
but in clear-seeing there is no process but the fact. 

I must now reply to your inquiries relating to 
dying persons. 

Your question about the influence of dying per- 
sons on those at a distance opens the whole subject 
of mesmeric action, and the influence of body over 
body, of the mind on body, and of the body on 
mind ; of the nature of sleep, somnambulism, trance, 
and clairvoyance. — I must confine myself to a few 
observations. 

The influence is usually received by those who 
have in some way been brought into relation or 
rapport with the dying person : and the influence 
is generally received during sleep, when the internal 
senses are freed from the ordinary senses, and qual- 
ified to receive direct, influences from without. Any 
change occurring in the condition of those with 
whom they were held more immediately in relation, 
(magnetic relation I will call it,) would be felt, and 
awake attention, just as any change upon our ordi- 
nary senses, either when awake or sleeping, arouses 
attention, — such as a candle going out when one 



UNREVEALED HUMAN RELATIONS. 285 

is asleep, or a strange noise occurring, or a familiar 
one ceasing. 

Again, a person dying is often more or less fall- 
ing into the trance condition— the bodily condi- 
tion weakening ; and the senses either become 
more acute, or the spirit-condition of the brain has 
a freer communication, or inter-relation with the 
universal medium without the dying person. Think- 
ing of the individual impressed may be sometimes 
a condition of the effect ; but this is far from being 
a universal cause. Persons are held in relation, 
as it were, by threads, the slightest alteration or 
loosening of which arrests attention and gives the im- 
pression. A somnambule or mesmerized person has 
much more influence in mesmerizing than a person 
in the normal state ; and many a dying person par- 
takes of this condition. I have known a dying 
child mesmerize a strong man by a few waves of 
the hand, the man having previously resisted the 
influence of powerful mesmerism. Any change in 
the nervous condition affects others. I have told 
you how distinctly I felt the commencement of the 
mesmeric condition in my patient, as of a slight 
electric shock ; and I have been sensible of each 
change during the sleep, and of the flowing away 
of disease. When diseases are dying out they in- 
fluence others. It is even so with a common cold, 
which passes away to another. And so, likewise, 
the state of the dying person influences : — flies off, 
as it were : disturbs or influences the universal 
medium, and thus reaches those in whom there was 
rapport, if they be in a fit condition to receive. 



286 MAN'S NATURE AMD DEVELOPMENT. 

Generally, the time most fitted to receive im- 
pressions of this nature is in a second sleep. Some 
persons die in an insensible, heavy sleep. I should 
not think that such a death would be felt like those 
in which a more trance-like state occurs, or where 
there is a blazing up and going out at once. In 
such a case as this last I have no doubt that a sen- 
sitive person would see light emitted. Experiments 
might be made with the sensitive upon dying ani- 
mals. A trance or fainting fit sometimes impresses 
persons at a distance in the same way as a death, 
and it is believed that death has occurred. 

The presentiment of death is the intuitive fac- 
ulty influenced by the changing condition, and by 
the intuitive condition, perhaps, of the dying per- 
son. The intuitive sense seems to act often un- 
consciously ; but the same state may become con- 
sciousness to another. The foreseeing events, or 
prophecy, seems to be the least comprehensible 
form of these singularly interesting phenomena. 

To estimate properly the effects of persons 
dying, we require more correct data as to time and 
circumstance ; and it is difficult to attain this. But 
of the existence of the fact I have evidence in the 
form of many good instances ; and so have you : 
and most persons have some case of the kind to 
relate. When the dying person appears to another 
in a form, such as of a black cat, or a shadow, or 
as a person, it is merely an induced condition, or 
subjective embodiment of an impression made. 
How any one can conclude otherwise seems mar- 



UNREVEALED HUMAN RELATIONS. 287 

vellous. When a man is dead, he is dead — as a 
magnet is dead when the magnetic force is re- 
moved. A diamond is dead when it becomes charcoal. 
A certain constrained force, so to speak, is released, 
and this it is which influences. In every change 
force is released, and a disturbance caused. 

We have yet to learn the relations we bear to 
each other : how we may influence each other by 
our good or ill condition. We have yet to learn 
that we may not do as we will with our own : for 
our own is others'. The knowledge which mes- 
merism gives of the influence of body on body,* 
and consequently of mind on mind, will bring about 
a morality we have not yet dreamed of. And who 
shall disguise his nature and his acts when we can- 
not be sure at any moment that we are free from 
the clairvoyant eye of some one who is observing 
our actions and most secret thoughts, and our 
whole character and history may be read off at any 
moment ! Few have the faintest idea of the influ- 
ence these great truths will have upon the morals 
of men, and upon our notions generally. Yes, there 
are indeed ' : more truths in heaven and earth than 
are " told " of in our philosophy." Men may smile, 
no doubt. But so they did at the railway, and the 
electric telegraph, and gas-lights, and phrenology, 
and the circulation of the blood ; and at the news 
that there were men standing with their feet to- 
wards ours ; that the stars are worlds ; that the earth 
moves round the sun. Men have smiled, and ridi- 

* Appendix A A. 



288 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

culed, and blasphemed against every truth as it has 
been revealed. When will the world learn wisdom 
by the past, and hope for the future, and be ashamed 
and humble when it wants knowledge ? Only, I 
think, when the philosophy of Man and Mind, 
raised from its true basis of material fact, is devel- 
oped, and admittted as a Science by the world. 
That men cannot imagine beyond their knowledge, 
is clear from every new truth being at first consid- 
ered impossible and unnatural. 

Of one thing I am sure, — that we are as yet but 
on the very threshold of knowledge, and that our 
social condition is depravity through and through, 
and from end to end. But the true philosopher 
will be all patience for the present, and confidence 
for the future, and never in haste to form institu- 
tions in advance of knowledge and the condition 
of society. 



XXIII. 

POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SEEKERS. 
H. M. to H. G. A. 

I do not like to say any thing after your last let- 
ter. I do not like to touch it, or the state of mind 
it produces in me. Yet it is right to tell you that 
it does so work upon any one mind as it does upon 
mine. — What an emancipation it is, — to have 



POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SEEKERS. 289 

escaped from the little enclosure of dogma, and to 
stand, — far indeed from being wise, — but free to 
learn ! How I wonder at myself now for having 
held (and very confidently held forth upon it, I am 
ashamed to say) that at all events it was safe to 
believe dogma : that for instance, whether there 
was a future state or not, it was safe and comfort- 
able to believe it: — that if, even, there was no 
God, serving as a model to Man, — the original of 
the image, — it was safe and tranquillizing to take 
for granted that there was. The enormity of this 
mistake was not fully apparent to me till last 
year, when a young man destined for the church, 
but not satisfied about all its doctrines, and in a 
state of fluctuation about his duty altogether, laid 
down as the one certain thing in his own and every 
other case, that at all events it was safe to take for 
granted what the Church prescribed. The very 
first step he took from this position was to conclude 
that his difficulties about a leading doctrine arose 
from personal sinfulness, and must be resolutely 
put down. I found then how clear and strong had 
become my vision and grasp of the truth that the 
holding of error is an incapacitating condition : — 
an evil infinitely worse than the merely being oc- 
cupied with what is untrue, — bad as that is. I 
saw clearly how enervating and depraving is the 
practice of harboring, through timidity or indo- 
lence, what is suspected to be untrue. The mere 
exclusion of the truth, by presence of the error, is 
a prodigious evil : but far greater is the misfortune 
25 



290 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

of the deterioration of all the powers, — from the 
lowest faculties of perception up to the highest of 
conscientiousness, reverence and benevolence, — 
which ensues upon all tampering with our own best 
nature. — And what a feeling it is, — that which 
grows up and pervades us when we have fairly 
returned to our obedience to Nature ! What a 
healthful glow animates the faculties ! what a 
serenity settles down upon the temper ! One seems 
to have even a new set of nerves, when one has 
planted one's foot on the broad common of Nature, 
and clear daylight, and bracing breezes are about 
one, and there are no more pitfalls and rolling 
vapors, — no more raptures and agonies of selfish 
hope and fear, — but sober certainty of reliance on 
the immutability of Nature's laws ; and the lofty 
liberty that is found in obedience to them. — We 
are still, and our kind must long continue to be, 
injured in power and in peace by the operation of 
past ignorance, which has mournfully impaired the 
conditions of human life ; but the emancipation 
which may be obtained is already precious beyond 
all estimate. Ignorant as we yet are, — hardly 
able yet (even the wisest of men) to snatch a 
glimpse of the workings of Nature, or to form a 
conception of the existence of Law, — obvious as 
it is that our condition is merely that of infant- 
waking upon the world of existence, the privilege 
of freedom, as far as we are able to go, is quite 
inestimable : — perhaps indeed as great as it can 
ever be. It is hard to conceive that it can do 



POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SEEKERS. 291 

more for individuals at any time than animate their 
intellects, renovate their consciences, elevate and 
refine their moral conceptions and conduct, and lift 
them out of the condition of passionate children 
into one of serene maturity of faculty, though not 
of knowledge. 

I thank you for the indications you give in this 
last letter of yours of the immediate nature and 
immeasurable extent of our ignorance. What a 
field it opens ! what a prospect of ever-growing 
enjoyment to succeeding generations, in the devel- 
opment of the universe under their contemplation ! 
If we, — you with your habit of study, and I with 
my growing conception of what study is, — are 
daily sensible of the enjoyment of that " perpetual 
spring of fresh ideas " which Mrs. Barbauld so well 
holds out, what must be the privilege of future 
generations who shall at the same time be more 
naturally free to learn, and find themselves in a 
bright noonday region and season of inquiry ! It 
is truly cheering to think of. If we feel a content- 
ment in our own lot which must be sound because 
it is derived from no special administration of our 
affairs, but from the impartial and necessary opera- 
tions of Nature, we cannot but feel, for the same 
reasons, a new exhilaration on account of the unborn 
multitudes who will, ages hence, enter upon ex- 
istence on better terms than those on which we 
hold it, — contented as we are with our share of 
the good and the evil of human life. — It is a pleas- 
ant thing to have a daily purpose of raising and 



292 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

disciplining ourselves for no end of selfish purchase 
or ransom, but from the instinctive tendency to 
mental and moral health. It is a pleasant thing 
to be free from all arbitrary restraint in ministering to 
the good — great or small — of any who are about 
us. But what a great thing it is to have, over and 
above* all this, the conception of a future time, when 
all discipline will consist in a sweet and joyful sur- 
render to Nature, and all the forces of the universe 
will combine to lift Man above his sorrows, to 
expand his old faculties, and elicit new, and to 
endow him at once with all the good obtained by 
former generations, together with new accessions 
far beyond the compass of our thought ! — Nothing 
short of this seems to be the prospect of our race : 
and does it not shed back a light to our very feet, 
— not only on high occasions of intercourse or 
meditation, but every day ? 



XXIV. 

POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SPEAKERS. 
H. G. A. to H. M. 

It seems to me there are three principal funda- 
mental forms of the moral life ; namely — active 
humanity, industry in acquiring knowledge, and 
honesty in imparting what we know. — It is one 



POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SPEAKERS. 293 

of the highest duties of Man to learn to know 
himself; and, secondly, to allow himself to be 
known — but the contending and false systems of 
the world are a great hinderance to simplicity of 
character and moral growth. — The mathematician, 
the linguist, the geologist, the chemist, may be 
very wise in those matters which they have studied, 
but very bad moralists, and wholly incompetent to 
govern and educate men. The power to govern is 
in the knowledge of the nature of the thing gov- 
erned. The mathematician may be a very bad 
reasoner on physiological matters, and the linguist 
no wiser for the ability to utter the same idea in 
several languages. If you would regulate your 
clock, you apply to the clockmaker ; if you would 
regulate a steam engine, you apply to the engineer : 
if you would cure a disease, you send for the 
physician : but if you would develop Man's nature, 
and learn how to regulate his conduct, both as an 
individual and as a member of society, would you 
send to Cambridge for a mathematician, or to Oxford 
for a linguist, or apply to the clockmaker or the 
village doctor ? — " Man knows no more than he 
has observed : " but whose profession is it to observe 
the laws of Man's nature and development ? Phy- 
sicians follow systems, take up their subject only in 
part ; and to this day are disputing about the most 
ordinary diseases, and the right method of cure ; 
both as regards the physical conditions and the 
required phenomena. The homoeopathic law — 
that "like cures like" — is doubtess a great truth, 
25* 



294 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

but certainly not the only principle of cure — nor 
of universal application. It is painful to see how 
every fresh application of a principle is twisted into 
a system — becomes a dogma, and hangs like a 
log about men's heels. Physicians, again, remain 
ignorant of the most important facts in physiology, 
not clearly recognizing the principle that every part 
of a subject must be studied by itself, — and also 
in relation to the whole, and the whole again in 
relation to a class of truths, and to universal nature. 
The body cannot be understood when studied as a 
matter separate from its phenomenon Mind j nor 
Mind irrespective of physical conditions, causes, and 
laws. The metaphysician again meditates upon 
his sensations and their sequence : and sees but in 
part, and very imperfectly, strangely unaware of the 
delusions to which he is subject : but could he even 
perceive correctly the whole phenomena of his 
thoughts and their order of development, it would 
only be like studying his bodily constitution by 
looking at himself in a glass : and he could tell you 
no more about the mind's action, the difference of 
men and the laws and causes of development, than 
the old woman in the village can tell you in regard 
to medicine and the true nature and cause of dis- 
eases ; and the metaphysician's mind is prejudiced 
and stuffed up by learning and abstract thought, 
and requires as much free air and ventilation as the 
old woman's cottage, and, cleared of the cobwebs, 
will have to commence study afresh after another 
method. Man is the result of organization — the 



POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SPEAKERS. 295 

external circumstances acting upon this, and the 
force of knowledge. Plato was fully impressed 
with this ; and his only hope for man was in pro- 
ducing good organizations, which were to be 
trained and developed under the most favorable 
circumstances ; the whole to be regulated by pure 
morality and correct reasoning, after the inductive 
method. He would force the best men to govern, 
and would not allow the legislator to accumulate 
wealth or to marry : but would have his mind left 
as free as possible from all selfish considerations 
and temptations, from all influences likely to 
damage his love of truth, his honesty, or desire for 
the general good. The cause of the theological 
errors of Plato and Socrates we can now clearly 
understand ; and is it not the duty of every man to 
endeavor to know himself, and the origin of his 
opinions ? " Know thyself," was the wise saying of 
Thales. " Bear and forbear," the constant admoni- 
tion of Epictetus. In the confusion of opinions 
which now exists, and which seems likely to in- 
crease, I see no hope but in a thorough investigation 
and reconsideration (so to speak) of Man's nature, 
the laws of his development, and the cause and 
origin of the opinions which he holds, and which 
men quarrel about, not seeing that their opinions are 
involuntary, and that, consequently, it is as great 
folly to quarrel about our opinions, as about the 
shape of our different noses. But I hear, on every 
hand, that men want courage to speak the truth : 
that those who do declare their honest and full 



296 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

convictions often suffer in their worldly affairs, and 
find themselves stigmatized by the clergy. This, 
I fear, is but too true ; and it exhibits the demor- 
alizing influence of articles of faith, and creeds, 
and dogmas ; but surely to utter the truth that is 
within you dispassionately, and in pure affection, 
and for the general good — is most worthy of a 
good nature ; and as natural as the desire of free- 
dom, and the growth of beauty. To an honest 
mind, the courage would seem to be in the daring 
to secrete the truth, and to oppose the dictates of 
conscience, and the free action of the mind. 

Shall we be content to receive all the benefits 
of life, delighting in the free developing and beauty 
of nature whilst we remain ourselves under a mask, 
standing there a conscious criminal in the midst ? 
for to disguise or deny what is true is to live in a 
lie, brave towards right, and a coward towards 
men : but there are many persons, and most re- 
spectable, good, and pious persons, too, who have 
no faith in knowledge ; in that faifch of faiths, that 
rest for hope, that solace of grief; in that which 
so surely contributes to peace and peace of mind ; 
to true wisdom and good works. And these persons 
talk of dangerous truths, as if all the danger did 
not come from the side of ignorance and error ; or 
as if any one truth could be opposed to any other 
truth — or to any system or faith founded on that 
which is true. 

To appear respectable in the eyes of the world, 
how many there are who attend church, say grace, 



POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SPEAKERS. 297 

and stickle for the sabbath ; and who, if necessary, 
would change their religion ! and yet, if all would 
be truthful and sincere, we should be saved from 
much of this fearfully demoralizing hypocrisy and 
cant ; and there would soon be an end to persecu- 
tion and the reign of terror. Men, again, desire a 
continuance of existence, and a renewed life : yet 
it is not the future they want, but a continuance 
of the present, for they shrink from every change, 
and struggle against every new truth, and with a 
bitterness and alarm that shows like insanity : but 
no wise man will desire that any one thing be true 
in preference to another ; nor that nature should 
stand still for his special gratification ; and when 
he is in error, he will be most thankful for correc- 
tion, and receive the news as gladly as if he had 
discovered a new truth. Nor must we forget that 
all conditions of things and opinions are right, and 
the best they can be in the time in which they 
exist — having their place in the plan of nature's 
progressive development. Again, that evil to indi- 
viduals is universal good, and the calamities of life 
the occasion for magnanimity and the highest vir- 
tues — Pain or pleasure — good or evil report, will 
follow as a consequence of our acts ; but must 
never be the reason or motive of action : and men 
must be admonished that the recognition of philo- 
sophical Necessity, or the sense of universal Law, 
will not, as some suppose, set men loose from re- 
straint to indulge their passions and evil desires. 
These good people seem strangely possessed with 



298 MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT. 

notions of Man's innate wickedness. On the other 
hand, it will not induce people " to lie down in a 
ditch and die," because they cannot help them- 
selves. The reverse will be the fact : for a knowl- 
edge of the cause will give a reason for exertion, 
and a confidence they did not possess before. The 
knowledge of the cause will present a means to an 
end, and induce the application : and those who be- 
lieve in freedom, (that is, in a cause uncaused in 
the will, and which, after all, would not be free- 
dom,) are those who are most indolent and doubting, 
believing, as they do, in a kind of chance, (which 
is the most fatal of all fatalisms,) though, at the 
same time, inconsistently enough by their prayers, 
teachings, and preaching, rewards and punish- 
ments, &c, acknowledging, in practice, a belief in 
moral results from sufficing causes. In a strange 
confusion of ideas, they neglect true fundamental 
causes, and the study of the Laws of Man's Nature 
and Development, and even deny the existence of 
such laws. But none are to blame, though so 
many are in error : — in error from want of knowl- 
edge, and a clear, untarnished mind, and a Right 
Method of Inquiry. 



APPENDIX 



A. — (Page 52.) 

" Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into 
artificial and natural : whereof artificial is, when the mind 
maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs 
and tokens : natural is, when the mind hath a presentation 
by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign. 
Artificial is of two, sorts : either when the argument is 
coupled with a derivation of causes, which is rational ; or 
when it is only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, 
which is experimental ; whereof the latter, for the most 
part, is superstitious ; such as were the heathen observa- 
tions upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the 
swarming of bees, and such as was the Chaldean astrology, 
and the like. For artificial divination, the several kinds 
thereof are distributed amongst particular knowledges. 
The astronomer hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, 
aspects, eclipses, and the like. The physician hath his pre- 
dictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and issues 
of diseases. The politician hath his predictions, ' O, urbem 
venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit ! ' which 
staid not long to be performed in Sylla first, and after in 
Caesar ; so as these predictions are now impertinent and 
to be referred over. But the divination which springeth 



300 APPENDIX. 

from the internal nature of the soul, is that which we now 
speak of; which hath been made to be of two sorts, prim- 
itive, and by influxion. Primitive is grounded upon the 
supposition, that the mind, when it is withdrawn and col- 
lected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the 
body, hath some extent and latitude of pre-notion, which 
therefore appeareth most in sleep, in ecstasies, and near 
death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions ; and is 
induced and furthered by those abstinences and obser- 
vances which make the mind most to consist in itself: by 
influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a 
mirror or glass, should take illumination from the fore- 
knowledge of God and spirits ; unto which the same regi- 
men doth likewise conduce. For the retiring of the mind 
within itself, is the state which is most susceptible of divine 
influxions, save that it is accompanied in this case with a 
fervency and elevation, which the ancients noted by fury, 
and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.'" — 
Bacon : The Advancement of Learning. 



" If there be any force in the imagination and affections 
of singular persons, it is probable the force is much more 
in the joint imaginations and affections of multitudes : as if 
a victory should be won or lost in remote parts, whether is 
there not some sense thereof in the people whom it con- 
cerneth ; because of the great joy or grief that many men 
are possessed with at once ? Pius Quaintus at the very time 
when that memorable victory was won by the Christians 
against the Turks, at the naval battle of Lepanto, being 
then hearing of causes in consistory, brake off suddenly, 
and said to those about him, • It is now more time we 
should give thanks to God for the great victory he hath 
granted us against the Turks : ' it's true, that victory had 
a sympathy with his spirit : for it was merely his work to 



APPENDIX. 301 

conclude that league. It may be that revelation was 
divine ; but what shall we say then to a number of examples 
amongst the Grecians and Romans ? where the people being 
in Theatres at plays, have had news of victories and over- 
throws, some few days before any messenger could come. 11 
— Bacon : Natural History, 10th Century. 



" But if Plutarch, besides several examples that he pro= 
duces out of antiquity, tells us of his certain knowledge, 
that in the time of Domitian the news of the battle lost by 
Anthony, in Germany, was published at Rome many days' 
journey thence, and dispersed throughout the whole world 
the same day it was fought : and if Caesar was of opinion 
that it has often happened that the report has preceded the 
event, shall we say that, forsooth, these simple people have 
suffered themselves to be deceived with the vulgar, not 
having been so clear-sighted as we?" — Montaigne, ch. 
xxvi. 

4t Our souls, then, having this inbred power, though 
weak, obscure, and hardly able to express their appre- 
hensions ; yet sometimes they spread forth and recover 
themselves, either in dreams or in the time of sacrifice or 
religious worship, when the body is well purified, and is 
indued with a certain temperature proper to this effort ; 
or when the rational or speculative part being released 
and freed from the solicitude after present things, joins 
with the irrational and imaginative part, to think of, and 
represent what is to come ; for it is not, as Euripides 
saith, that he is the best prophet who guesses well ; but he 
is the wisest man, not whose guess succeeds well in the 
event, but who, whatever the event be, takes reason and 
probability for his guide. Now the faculty of divining, 
like blank paper, is void of any reason or determination 
26 



302 . APPENDIX. 

of itself, but is susceptible of fantasies and pretensions, and 
without any ratiocination or discourse of reason, touches 
on that which is to come, when it is farthest off from the 
present, out of which it departs, by means of a certain 
disposition of body, which we call inspiration or enthu- 
siasm. Now the body is sometimes indued naturally with 
this disposition ; but most times the earth casts forth to 
men the sources and causes of several other powers and 
faculties, some of which carry men beside themselves into 
ecstasy and frenzy, and produce maladies and mortalities ; 
others again are sometimes good, gentle, and profitable, 
as appears by those who have had the experience of them. 
But this spring, or wind, or spirit of divination, is most 
holy and divine, whether it be raised by itself through the 
air, or be compounded and mixed with a watery or liquid 
substance. For being infused and mixed with the body 
it produces an odd temperature and strange disposition in 
the soul, which a man cannot exactly express, though he 
may resemble or compare it to several things; for by heat 
and dilation it openeth certain pores that make a discov- 
ery of future things ; like wine, which causing fumes to 
ascend up into the head, puts the spirits into many unu- 
sual motions, and reveals things that were laid up in 
secret." — u, Tis no wonder then, if the earth, sending up 
many exhalations, only those of this sort transport the soul 
with a divine fury, and give them a faculty of foretelling 
future things. And without doubt, what is related touch- 
ing the oracle of this place, does herewith agree. For 
it is here that this faculty of divining first showed itself, 
by means of a certain shepherd, who chanced to fall 
down and began to utter enthusiastic speeches concern- 
ing future events; of which, at first, the neighbors took 
no notice ; but when they saw what he foretold come 
to pass, they had him in admiration, and the most 



APPENDIX. 303 

learned among the Delphians, speaking of this man, are 
used to call him by the name of Coretas." — " And as to 
the oracle of Mopsus, I can, from my own knowledge, 
tell you a strange story about it. The Governor of 
Cilicia was a man inclining to scepticism, and doubtful 
whether there be gods ; and had about him several Epi- 
cureans, who were wont to mock at the belief of such 
things as seem contrary to reason. He sent a freed ser- 
vant of his in the nature of a spy, with a letter sealed, 
wherein was the question he was to ask the Oracle, no- 
body knowing the contents thereof. This man, then, as 
the custom of the place is, remaining all night in the 
temple porch asleep, related the next morning the dream 
which he had ; for he thought he saw a very handsome 
man stand before him, who said only this word, ' Black,' to 
him, and nothing else, for he vanished away immediately. 
This seemed to us very impertinent, though we could not 
tell what to make of it ; but the Governor marvelled at 
it, and was so nettled with it, that he had the Oracle 
in great veneration ever since ; for, opening the letter, he 
showed this question which was therein : Shall I sacrifice 
to thee a white bull or a black ? which dashed his Epi- 
cureans quite out of countenance ; and he offered the 
sacrifice required, and to the day of his death continued 
a devout admirer of Mopsus." — " But to what purpose, 
if it be true, that souls are naturally indued with the 
faculty of prediction, and that the chief cause that excites 
this faculty and virtue, is a certain temperature of air or 
wind ? and what signifies then the sacred institutions and 
setting apart these religious prophetesses, for the giving of 
answers ? And why do they return no answer at all, un- 
less the sacrifice tremble all over, even from the very feet, 
while the wine is poured on its head ? " — Plutarch, on 
Oracles, 



304 APPENDIX. 

Extract from Mr. Wesley's Journal, under the head 
"July, 1761." 
" About one, I preached at Bramley, where Jonas Rush- 
ford, about fourteen years old, gave me the following rela- 
tion : i About this time last year I was desired by two 
of our neighbors, to go with them to Mr. Crowther's at 
Skipton, who would not speak to them, about a man that 
had been missing twenty weeks, but bid them bring a boy 
twelve or thirteen years old. When we came in he stood 
reading a book. He put me into a bed with a looking-glass 
in my hand, and covered me all over. Then he asked me, 
whom I had a mind to see ; and I said " My mother." I 
presently saw her with a lock of wool in her hand, stand- 
ing just in the place and the clothes she was in, as she told 
me afterwards. Then he bid me look again for the man 
that was missing, who was one of our neighbors : and I 
looked and saw him riding towards Idle ; but he was very 
drunk : and he stopped at the alehouse and drank two 
pints more ; and he pulled out a guinea to change. Two 
men stood by, a big man and a little man ; and they went 
on before him and got two hedgestakes. And when he 
came up, on Windhill Common, at the top of the hill, they 
pulled him off his horse and killed him and threw him into 
a coal-pit. And I saw it all as plainly as if 1 were close 
to them : and if I saw the men I should know them again. 
We went back to Bradford that night, and the next day 
I went with our neighbors, and showed them the spot 
where he was killed, and the pit into which he was thrown. 
And a man went down and brought him up ; and it was 
as I told them : his handkerchief was tied about his mouth, 
and fastened behind his neck.' 

" On which Mr. Wesley makes this remark : — 
<4 1 Is it improbable only, or flatly impossible, when all 
the circumstances are considered, that this should all be 



APPENDIX. 305 

pure fiction ? They that can believe this, may believe a 
man's getting into a bottle.' " 



Another extract from Mr. Wesley' 's Works, vol. x. p. 163. 

" A little before the conclusion of the late war in 
Flanders, one who came from thence gave us a very 
strange relation. I knew not what judgment to form of 
this ; but waited till John Haime should come over, of 
whose veracity I could no more doubt, than of his under- 
standing. The account he gave was this : t Jonathan 
Pyrah was a member of our society, in Flanders. I knew 
him some years, and knew him to be a man of unblamable 
character. One day he was summoned to appear before 
the board of general officers. One of them said, " What 
is this which we hear of you ? We hear you are turned 
prophet, and that you foretell the downfall of the bloody 
house of Bourbon, and the haughty house of Austria. 
We should be glad if you were a real prophet, and if 
your prophecies came true. But what sign do you give to 
convince us you are so ; and that your predictions will 
come to pass ? " He readily answered : " Gentlemen, 
I give you a sign. To-morrow at twelve o'clock, you 
shall have such a storm of thunder and lightning, as you 
never had before since you came into Flanders. I give 
you a second sign : As little as any of you expect any 
such thing, as little appearance of it as there is now, you 
shall have a general engagement with the French within 
three days. I give you a third sign : I shall be ordered 
to advance in the first line. If I am a false prophet I 
shall be shot dead at the first discharge. But if I am a 
true prophet I shall only receive a musket ball in the calf 
of my left leg." At twelve the next day there was such 
thunder and lightning as they never had before in Flanders. 
26* 



306 APPENDIX. 

On the third day, contrary to all expectation, was the 
general battle of Fontenoy. He was ordered to advance 
in the first line, and at the very first discharge he received 
a musket ball in the calf of his left leg.' " 



Swedenborg'' s Clairvoyance independent of Mesmerism. 

Kant gives a relation concerning a Madam Von Marse- 
ville, and continues thus : — 

" But the following occurrence appears to me to have 
the greatest weight of proof, and to set the assertion 
respecting Swedenborg's extraordinary gift out of all pos- 
sibility of doubt. In the year 1759, when M. de Sweden- 
borg, towards the end of February, on Saturday, at four 
o'clock, P. M., arrived at Gottenburg from England, Mr. 
William Costel invited him to his house, together with a 
party of fifteen persons. About 6 o'clock M. de Sweden- 
borg went out, and after a short interval returned to the 
company quite pale and alarmed. He said that a danger- 
ous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, at the Suder- 
malm, (Gottenburg is about three hundred miles from 
Stockholm,) and that it was spreading very fast. He was 
restless and went out often : he said that the house of one 
of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and 
that his own was in danger. At 8 o'clock, after he had 
been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, 4 Thank God ! 
the fire is extinguished the third door from my house.' 
This news occasioned great commotion through the whole 
city, and particularly amongst the company in which he 
was. It was announced to the Governor the same even- 
ing. On the Sunday morning, Swedenborg was sent for 
by the Governor, who questioned him concerning the 
disaster. Swedenborg described the fire precisely, how it 
had begun, in what manner it had ceased, and how long 



APPENDIX. 307 

it had continued. On the same day the news was spread 
through the city, and, as the Governor had thought it 
worthy of attention, the consternation was considerably 
increased ; because many were in trouble on account of 
their friends and property, which might have been involved 
in the disaster. 

44 On the Monday evening a messenger arrived at Got- 
tenburg, who was despatched during the time of the fire. 
In the letters brought by him, the fire was described pre- 
cisely in the manner stated by Swedenborg. On the 
Tuesday morning the royal courier arrived at the Gov- 
ernor's with the melancholy intelligence of the fire, of 
the loss which it had occasioned, and of the houses it had 
damaged and ruined, not in the least differing from that 
which Swedenborg had given immediately after it had 
ceased, for the fire was extinguished at 8 o'clock. 

44 What can be brought forward against the authenticity 
of this occurrence ? My friend, who wrote this to me, 
has not only examined the circumstances of this extraor- 
dinary case at Stockholm, but also about two months ago, 
at Gottenburg, where he is acquainted with the most 
respectable houses, and where he could obtain the most 
authentic and complete information ; as the greatest part 
of the inhabitants who are still alive were witnesses to the 
memorable occurrence. 

4< I am, with profound reverence, &c, 

44 Emanuel Kant."" 

" Koenigsburg, Aug. 10, 1768." 



zschokke's divination.* 
44 There was, however, no want of agreeable society in 
my new retirement, either that of some select families 

* He is well known as an author, statesman, philosopher, and 
reformer. 



308 APPENDIX. 

and individuals in the city, or old friends and acquaint- 
ances of the Union, who never forgot me when they 
passed, or in visits from travellers allured by the love of 
wandering into Switzerland, or borne hither by the wind 
of destiny. I never failed to receive such visitors with 
all due honor, having learned from experience how gladly 
in travelling, we make use of such opportunities to fill up 
vacant moments, in order to acquire information, to enrich 
the harvest of remembrance. I, therefore, submitted to 
my fate with resignation. If this kind of virtue became 
burdensome at times, it was rewarded at others by making 
the acquaintance of remarkable persons, or by the op- 
portunities it yielded for the exercise of a singular kind 
of prophetic gift which I called my c inward sight,' but 
which has ever been enigmatical to me. I am almost 
afraid to speak of this, not because I am . afraid to be 
thought superstitious, but that I may thereby strengthen 
such feelings in others. And yet it may be an addition 
to our stock of soul-experiences, and, therefore, I will 
confess ! 

" It is well known that the judgment we not seldom 
form at the first glance of persons hitherto unknown, is 
more correct than that which is the result of longer ac- 
quaintance. The first impression that through some in- 
stinct of the soul attracts or repels us with strangers, is 
afterwards weakened or destroyed by custom, or by dif- 
ferent appearances. We speak in such cases of sympa- 
thies or antipathies, and perceive these effects frequently 
among children to whom experience in human character 
is wholly wanting. Others are incredulous on this point, 
and have recourse rather to the art of physiognomy. Now 
for my own case. 

"It has happened tome, sometimes, on my first meeting 
with strangers, as I listened silently to their discourse, 



APPENDIX. 309 

that their former life, with many trifling circumstances 
therewith connected, or frequently some particular scene 
in that life, has passed quite involuntarily, and, as it were, 
dream-like, yet perfectly distinct, before me. During this 
time I usually feel so entirely absorbed in the contem- 
plation of the stranger life, that, at last, I no longer see 
clearly the face of the unknown wherein I undesignedly 
read, nor distinctly hear, the voices of the speakers, which 
before served, in some measure, as a commentary to the 
text of their features. For a long time I held such visions 
as delusions of the fancy, and the more so as they showed 
me even the dress and motions of the actors, rooms, 
furniture, and other accessories. By way of jest, I once, 
in a family circle at Kirchberg, related the secret history 
of a seamstress who had just left the room and the house. 
I had never seen her before in my life ; people were as- 
tonished and laughed, but were not to be persuaded that 
I did not previously know the relations of which I spoke, 
for what I had uttered was the literal truth ; I, on my 
part, was no less astonished that my dream-pictures were 
confirmed by the reality. I became more attentive to the 
subject, and when propriety admitted it, I would relate to 
those whose life thus passed before me, the subject of my 
vision, that I might thereby obtain confirmation or refuta- 
tion of it. It was invariably ratified, not without conster- 
nation on their part. * I myself had less confidence than 
any one in this mental jugglery. So, often as I revealed 
my visionary gifts • to any new person, I regularly ex- 

* " • What demon inspires you ? Must I again believe in pos- 
session r ' exclaimed the spirituel Johann von Riga, when, in the 
first hour of our acquaintance, I related his past life to him, with 
the avowed object of learning whether or no I deceived myself. 
We speculated long on the enigma, but even his penetration could 
not solve it." 



310 APPENDIX. 

pected to hear the answer : ' It was not so.' I felt a secret 
shudder when my auditors replied that it was true, or 
when their astonishment betrayed my accuracy before 
they spoke. Instead of many, I will mention one exam- 
ple, which preeminently astounded me. One fair day, in 
the city of Waldshut, I entered an inn (the Vine,) in com- 
pany with two young student foresters : we were tired 
with rambling through the woods. We supped with a 
numerous society at the table <Thote, where the guests 
were making very merry with the peculiarities and eccen- 
tricities of the Swiss, with Mesmer's magnetism, Lavater's 
physiogonomy, &c, &c. One of my companions whose 
national pride was wounded by their mockery, begged me 
to make some reply, particularly to a handsome young 
man who sat opposite us, and who had allowed himself 
extraordinary license. This man's former lifewas at that 
moment presented to my mind. I turned to him and 
asked whether he would answer me candidly if I related 
to him some of the most secret passages of his life, I 
knowing as little of him personally as he did of me. That 
would be going a little further, I thought, than Lavater 
did with his physiognomy. He promised, if I were correct, 
in my information, to admit it frankly. I then related 
what my vision had shown me, and the whole company 
were made acquainted with the private history of the young 
merchant ; his school years, his youthful errors, and lastly, 
with a fault committed in reference to the strong box of 
his principal. I described to him the uninhabited room 
with whitened walls, where, to the right of the brown door, 
on a table, stood a black money-box, &c, &c. A dead 
silence prevailed during the whole narration, which I alone 
occasionally interrupted by inquiring whether I spoke the 
truth. The startled young man confirmed every particu- 
lar, and even, what I had scarcely expected, the last men- 



APPENDIX. 311 

tioned. Touched by his candor, I shook hands with him 
over the table, and said no more. He asked my name, 
which I gave him, and we remained together talking till 
past midnight. He is probably still living ! 

" I can well explain to myself how a person of lively 
imagination may form, as in a romance, a correct picture 
of the actions and passions of another person, of a certain 
character, under certain circumstances. But whence came 
those trifling accessories which nowise concerned me, and 
in relation to people for the most part indifferent to me, 
with whom I neither had, nor desired to have, any con- 
nection ? Or, was the whole matter a constantly recurring 
accident ? Or, had my auditor, perhaps, when I related 
the particulars of his former life, very different views to 
give of the whole, although in his first surprise, and mis- 
led by some resemblances, he had mistaken them for the 
same ? And yet impelled by this very doubt, I had several 
times given myself trouble to speak of the most insignifi- 
cant things which my waking dream had revealed to me. 
I shall not say another word on this singular gift of vision, 
of which I cannot say it was ever of the slightest service ; 
it manifested itself rarely, quite independently of my will, 
and several times in reference to persons whom I cared 
little to look through. Neither am I the only person in 
possession of this power. On an excursion I once made 
with two of my sons, I met with an old Tyrolese who car- 
ried oranges and lemons about the country, in a house of 
public entertainment, in Lower Hanenstein, one of the 
passes of the Jura. He fixed his eyes on me for some 
time, then mingled in the conversation, and said that he 
knew me, although he knew me not, and went to relate 
what I had done and striven to do in former times, to the 
consternation of the country people present, and the great 
admiration of my children, who were diverted to find 



312 APPENDIX. 

another person gifted like their father. How the old 
lemon merchant came by his knowledge h« could explain 
neither to me nor to himself; he seemed, nevertheless, to 
value himself somewhat upon his mysterious wisdom. 1 ' — 
Autobiography of Zschokke, pp. 169-172. 



'• The path is difficult, secret, and beset with terror. 
The ancients called it ecstasy or absence, a getting out of 
their bodies to think. All religious history contains traces 
of the trance of saints : a beatitude, but without any sign 
of joy ; earnest, solitary, even sad ; ' the flight,' Plotinus 
calls it, ' of the alone to the alone.' Mvecrig, the closing 
of the eyes, whence our word mystic. The trances of 
Socrates, Plotinus, Porphyry, Behmen, Bunyan, Fox, 
Pascal, Guion, Swedenborg, will readily come to mind. 
But what as readily comes to mind is the accompaniment 
of disease," -— Emerson, on Swedenborg. 



14 1 was never so willing to believe philosophy in any 
thing as this : it is a pure enthusiasm wherewith sacred 
truth has inspired the spirit of philosophy, which makes, 
I confess, contrary to its own proposition, that the most 
calm, composed, and healthful estate of the soul that 
philosophy can seat it in, is not its best condition ; our 
waking is more a sleep than sleep itself ; our wisdom less 
wise than folly ; our dreams are worth more than our 
meditations — and the worst place we can take is in our- 
selves." — Montaigne. 



" We better ourselves by the privation of our reason 
and by drilling it. The two natural ways to enter into 
the cabinet of the Gods, and there to foresee the course 
of destiny, are Fury and Sleep." — Montaigne. 



APPENDIX. 313 



B. — (Page 79.) 

" When we make a general assertion, unless it be a true 
one, the possibility of it is inconceivable ; and words 
whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we 
call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore, 
if a man should talk to me of a round Quadrangle or 
accidents of bread in cheese ; or immaterial substance ; or 
of a free subject ; a free will ; or any free, but free from 
being hindered by opposition ; I should not say he was in 
an error ; but that his words were without meaning ; that 
is to say, absurd." — Hobbes : Leviathan. 



44 And indeed it may almost be asserted that all intem- 
perance in any kind of pleasure, and all disgraceful con- 
duct's not properly blamed as the consequence of voluntary 
guilt ; for no one is voluntarily bad ; but he who is depraved 
becomes so through a certain bad habit of body, and an 

ill-governed education." " All the vicious are 

vicious through two most involuntarily causes, which we 
should always ascribe rather to the planters than the things 
planted, and to the trainers rather than those trained ; but 
still it should be our anxious endeavor as far as we can, by 
education, studies and learning, to fly from vice and ac- 
quire its contrary virtue." — Plato : Timceus. 



44 Others cut off particular provinces of nature as ex- 
ceptions from the plan of constant order. Whatever part 
is dubious or obscure, to mankind generally, or to them- 
selves in particular, there they rear the torn standard of 
the arbitrary system of divine rule. Human volitions 
27 



314 APPENDIX. 

form such a region to many who know not that Quetelet 
has reduced these to mathematical formulas ; and that one 
of our most popular divines has written a Bridgewater 
Treatise to show the predominance of natural law over 
mind, as a proof of the existence and wisdom of God." — 
Sequel to the Vestiges of Creation, p. 125. 



" Moreover, what foundation of this justice can the 
Gods take notice of, or reward man after his death for his 
good and virtuous actions, since it was themselves that 
put them in the way and mind to do them ? And why 
should they be offended at, or punish him for wicked ones, 
since themselves have created in him so frail a condition, 
and when, with one glance of their will, they might pre- 
vent him from falling." — Montaigne. 



" Neither is it possible for any power to burst the chain 
of causes ; nor is nature to be overcome, except by sub- 
mission." — Bacon. 



" The necessary connection of natural causes with their 
effects, is the reason for employing the former as the 
means for the attainment of the latter. But when the 
only useful change is ascribed to agents, of which the very 
essence is, that their agency is influenced by no laws ascer- 
tainable or comprehensible by Man, I am at a loss to dis- 
cover how we can justify, in argument, the attempt to use 
means, of which we begin by denying the efficacy." — 
Sir J. Mackintosh. 



APPENDIX. 315 

0.— (Page 81.) 

"And in these four things, opinions of ghosts, igno- 
rance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, 
and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the 
natural seeds of religion ; which, by reason of the different 
fancies, judgments, and passions of several men, hath 
grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are 
used by one man, are, for the most part, ridiculous to 
another." — Hobbes : Leviathan.* 



" But men foolishly think that Gods are born like as 
men are ; and have, too, a dress like their own, and their 
voice, and their figure ; but if oxen and lions had hands 
like our own, and fingers, then would horses like unto 
horses, and oxen to oxen, paint and fashion their god- 
forms ; and give to them bodies of like shape to their own 
as they themselves, too, are fashioned." — Xenophanes. 



" The uneducated man regards the whole system of the 
world as resulting from, and depending upon, the imme- 
diate working and guidance of an Almighty Being, who 
acts, in each case, as may seem to him most meet, exactly 
as human creatures do." — Sequel to the Vestiges of 
Creation. 

" You are fit," (says the supreme Krishna to a sage,) 
" to apprehend that you are not distinct from me. That 
which I am, thou art, and that also is the world, with its 
Gods, and heroes, and mankind. Men contemplate dis- 
tinctions because they are stupefied with ignorance." — 
Emerson, on Plato. 

* Hobbes's disbelief and ignorance of the adventitious and inner 
range of the mind's action, forced him into a hard scepticism, 
and spoiled his usefulness. H. Q. A. 



316 APPENDIX. 

D. — (Page 94) 

44 But Decsearchus, in three books, gives us an account 
of the disputings of several learned men at Corinth, and 
introduces Pherecrates, an old man of Phthios (reported 
to be of the family of Deucalion), arguing that there is no 
such thing as the soul, but that it is merely an empty 
name, and that the using the words animantia, and ani- 
malia, is ridiculous, inasmuch, as neither man nor beast 
has any soul, in Latin, anima ; and that the power by 
which we do and suffer is equally spread in all living crea- 
tures alike, and inseparable from the body, as being 
nothing but the body so figured as by force of nature to 
have life and sense." — Cicero, on Contempt of Death. 



w Again, let the required nature be the discursive power 
of the mind : the classification of human reason, and 
animal instinct appears to be perfectly correct, yet there 
are some instances in the actions of brutes, which seem to 
show that they too can syllogize." — Bacon : Nov. Org., 
Aph. 35. 

" Many philosophers even furnished the brutes with a 
soul. The pious and benevolent Bonnet promised them 
immortality." — Gall. 



" The mind of man, of the dog, and of all other animal 
mind, is part of the vital actions : it is the result of the 
elaborate mechanism perfected by nature." — Smee, on 
Instinct and Reason. 



" It is not prudence that distinguishes men from beasts. 
There be beasts, that at a year old observe more, and pur- 
sue that which is for their good, more prudently than a 
child can do at ten." — Holies. 



APPENDIX. 317 



E. — (Page 102.) 

" For although nothing exists in nature except indi- 
vidual bodies, exhibiting clear individual effects, according 
to particular laws ; yet, in each branch of learning, that 
very law, its investigation, discovery, and development, 
are the foundation both of theory and practice." — Bacon : 
Nov. Org., Aph. 2, Book 2d. 



" I do not believe that there is now one object or event 
in all our experience of nature, within the bounds of the 
solar system, at least, which has not either been ascer- 
tained by direct observation to follow laws of its own, or 
been proved to be exactly similar to objects and events, 
which, in more familiar manifestations, or on a more 
limited scale, follow strict laws: our inability to trace the 
same laws on a larger scale, and in the more recondite 
instances, being accounted for by the number and com- 
plication of the modifying causes, or by their inaccessibility 
to observation." — MiWs System of Logic, ii. 116. 



u No more causes, or any other causes of natural 
effects, ought to be admitted but such as are both true 
and are sufficient for explaining their appearances." — 
Newton. 

" Every branch of human knowledge hath its proper 
principles, its proper foundation, and method of reason- 
ing : and if we endeavor to build it upon any other 
foundation, it will never stand firm and stable. Thus, 
the historian builds upon testimony, and rarely indulges 
conjecture. The antiquarian mixes conjecture with testi- 
mony ; and the former often makes the larger ingredient. 
27* 



318 APPENDIX. 

The mathematician pays not the least regard either to 
testimony or conjecture, but deduces every thing by de- 
monstrative reasoning, from his definitions and axioms. 
Indeed, whatever is built upon conjecture is improperly 
called science : for conjecture may beget opinion, but 
cannot produce knowledge. Natural philosophy must be 
built upon the phenomena of the material system dis- 
covered by observation and experiment.'" — Reid. 



" Sir Isaac Newton has the merit of giving the form of 
a science to this branch of (Natural) Philosophy ; and it 
need not appear surprising, if the philosophy of the 
Human Mind should be a century or two later in being 
brought to maturity." — Reid. 



F._ (Page 126.) 

" Having expressed my desire to you, gentlemen, to 
avail myself of Dr. Strong's liberal offer to try the effect of 
mesmerism upon the inmates of the Insane Hospital here, 
you were kind enough to sanction a monthly expenditure 
of 20 rupees for this purpose, which has been spent in 
paying ten of the guards 2 rupees a month each to act as 
mesmerizers. Being familiar with the soothing and strength- 
ening effects of mesmerism upon the debilitated and irri- 
table nervous systems of the sane, and believing that 
insanity, in general, originates in debility or functional 
derangement of the brain, I expected to find mesmerism 
of service in the treatment of madness, like every thing 
else that restores tone and regularity to the system. But 
functional derangement of the brain, if long neglected, 



APPENDIX. 319 

becomes as inveterate as other chronic diseases of func- 
tion, and success under any treatment will mainly depend 
upon early attention being paid to the case. The Asylum 
here only contains the most unfavorable and dishearten- 
ing subjects to work upon ; the inmates being generally 
poor, friendless wretches, picked up by the police in high- 
ways, or confined by order of the magistrate for offences 
committed in paroxysms of madness. We have seldom 
any previous history of the individual to enable us to 
guess whether the disease is one of organic lesion or func- 
tional derangement only of the brain, and possibly the 
persons may never have been sane in their lives ; under 
these circumstances, any success whatever from a new 
mode of treatment would surely be veiy satisfactory and 
encouraging. By habitually expecting little, and being 
thankful for the smallest favor from nature, I have gen- 
erally had my expectations more than realized. 

" The patients were taken in the order of their names 
in the register, and none were rejected, except for old age 
or self-evident idiocy ; care being also taken that the 
persons were then perfectly mad, lest a lucid interval might 
be the commencement of a permanent cure. During the 
last six months, thirty-seven persons have been mes- 
merized, and the results are : — 

8 cured. 

1 cured, and relapsed. 
18 no change. 
1 died. 

9 under treatment — 5 much improved. 

37 

" As I mentioned, toe found the insane as readily af- 
fected as the sane ; many of the patients being thrown into 
the trance, although it was not desired to do so, it not 



320 APPENDIX. 

being thought necessary. One morning I found a new 
man being mesmerized, without orders ; the native doctor 
said, that he had come to the hospital that morning, and, 
as his throat was cut, he had desired him to be entranced, 
if possible, to have it sewn up. On examining the man I 
found him intensely entranced (after half an hour), and fit 
to bear any operation ; but, I not having the necessary 
instruments at hand, it was put off. Next day, he was 
again found entranced, and the edges of the wound 
having become callous, they were pared raw with a knife, 
and the wound was then brought together with stitches 
and plaster. He was in no way disturbed by this, and, 
on waking, was surprised to find himself no longer breath- 
ing through the hole in his neck. Several of the men 
dated their recovery from a certain day, saying, that after 
awaking on such a day they had felt their ' heads light- 
ened? or their ' hearts opened ; ' and their conduct and ap- 
pearance agreed with this statement. The rapid change 
effected in one man, named Beekoram, was very striking. 
When brought before us, he was the very picture of a 
moping madman, his mind and body being equally listless 
and apathetic ; his countenance was void of expression, 
and no rational answers to questions could be got from 
him. This was one of the men who passed into the 
trance, and at the end of ten days he was absolutely a new 
being, and had become as active and intelligent as he had 
formerly been torpid and stupid. 

" Dr. Strong, one day, asked me in conversation, if 
there was any reason to suppose that the natives of this 
country knew mesmerism before we introduced it among 
them. I replied that it could not be reasonably doubted, 
and that their medical conjurers are often genuine mesmer- 
izers, as I have described in my Mesmerism in India. 
This has been confirmed from different quarters, and 



APPENDIX. 321 

especially by Dr. Davidson, late resident at Jeyepore. This 
gentleman, visiting our hospital, and seeing the mesmer- 
izers stroking and breathing upon the patients, said, 4 1 now 
understand what the jar-phoonk of Upper India means; 
it is nothing but mesmerism.' Being requested to explain 
himself, he continued : — c Many of my people, after I had 
tried in vain to cure thern of different severe complaints, 
used to ask leave for several weeks to be treated by the 
J adoo -wallah, or conjurer ; and, to my great surprise, they 
often returned quite well, and, in reply to my inquiries, 
they always said that they had undergone a process called 
jar-phoonk. I could never understand what this was, but 
I now see it before me ; it is the combination of stroking 
and breathing; jama, being to stroke, and phoonka, to 
breathe ; which very correctly describes the mesmeric 
process.' 

" This conversation with Dr. Strong took place in the 
presence of the mesmerizers and patients; and, turning to 
the former, I asked if any of them knew what the jar- 
phoonk was in Upper India ; but they were chiefly Benga- 
lese, and had not heard of it. Beekoram, who had been 
listening, said, ■ Jar-phoonk 7 O yes, I know it, — I am 
an up-countryman, and will tell you all about it ; this is 
the way the Jadoo-wallahs do ; ' and he went through the 
process with great precision, pretty much as I have 
described it as practised in Bengal. This man and three 
other recovered patients, were taught to mesmerize, and in 
a few trials subdued their subjects as well as could be 
desired, and, as a moral discipline, they were required to 
report upon the conduct of their patients during the day, 
which they did very satisfactorily every morning. These 
men, being criminals, have not been discharged, and may 
be conversed with in the hospital now. 

" Dr. Kean, of Berhampore, writes to me that he has 



322 APPENDIX. 

had much more striking success in his Lunatic Asylum, 
probably owing to more regular superintendence, which is 
indispensable ; for if not done with a ivill, it need not be 
done at all. 

" Dr. Kean says : — ' Taking a hasty glance over the 
years 1847 and 1848, 1 see that about 74 patients were 
mesmerized ; and that of these, 64 were discharged cured 
to all appearance, and I think it has been successful in 
every case of epilepsy.' 

" It thus appears, that mesmerism is likely to be as ser- 
viceable in the treatment of insanity, as it is in general 
medicine and the practice of surgery, and I should like 
extremely to prosecute the subject to the extent it deserves, 
both for its physical and metaphysical interest ; for the 
physical effects of mesmerism comprise only one half of 
the subject, and we must be familiar with both the bodily 
and mental phenomena before we can attempt to reason 
with any success upon the nature and laws which govern 
this wonderful vital agent." — Second Half-Yearly Report 
of the Calcutta Mesmeric Hospital, 1849. 



G.— (Page 128.) 

" If we bear in mind that as no occurrence in the world, 
so also no phenomena of nature, either in the animal or 
vegetable kingdom, can appear without standing in relation 
to, or as the immediate result of, another that has preceded 
it ; (as the present condition of a plant or animal is de- 
pendent upon certain preexisting conditions ;) it is clear, 
that if all the causes that affect one condition, and that 
influence upon time and space, with their properties, are 



APPENDIX. 323 

known to us, we shall be able to declare what other con- 
ditions will succeed the former one. The extreme of these 
conditions or relations, is what we term a natural law." 
— On Investigation pursued according to Physiological 
Laws, by Justus Liebig. 



" It seems to me that a like degree of empiricism at- 
taches to descriptions of the universe and to civil history ; 
but in reflecting upon physical phenomena and events, and 
tracing their courses by the processes of reason, we become 
more and more convinced of the ancient doctrine that the 
forces inherent in matter and those which govern the moral 
world, exercise their action under the control of pri- 
mordial necessity, and in accordance with movements 
occurring periodically, after longer or shorter intervals." 
— Humboldt : Cosmos, vol. i. p. 30. 



H.— (Page 131.) 

" Contrary to the wishes and counsels of those profound 
and powerful thinkers, who have given new life to specula- 
tions which were already familiar to the ancients, systems 
of natural philosophy have in our own country for some 
time past turned aside the minds of men from the graver 
study of mathematical and physical sciences. The abuse 
of better powers, which has led many of our noble but ill- 
judging youth into the saturnalia of a purely ideal science 
of nature, has been signalized by the intoxication of pre- 
tended conquests, by a novel and fantastically symbolical 
phraseology, and by a predilection for the formulae of a 
scholastic rationalism, more contracted in its views than. 



324 APPENDIX. 

any known to the middle ages. I use the expression 
k abuse of better powers,' because superior intellects de- 
voted to philosophical pursuits and experimental science 
have remained strangers to these saturnalia. The results 
yielded by an earnest investigation in the path of experi- 
ment, cannot be at variance with a true philosophy of 
nature." — Humboldt : Cosmos, end of Introduction. 



" He who hath not first, and before all, intimately ex- 
plored the movements of the human mind, and therein 
most accurately distinguished the course of knowledge and 
the seats of error, shall find all things masked, and as it 
were enchanted, and, till he undo the charm, shall be 
unable to interpret." — Bacon : Impediments of Inter* 
pretation. 

"But men are more disposed to give themselves to 
speculation than to the painful study of nature. At each 
step the metaphysicians come in to retard the progress of 
the naturalists : and in general it is to the metaphysicians 
that we must attribute the ignorance in which we are still 
involved respecting the true nature of Man : and this 
shameful slavery will contiuue so long as we refuse to ac- 
quire the details of an organization capable of explaining 
all the phenomena of sensibility, all the various instincts, 
propensities and intellectual faculties." — Gall, vol. ii. p. 15. 



" The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us 
see and perceive all other things, takes no notice' of itself: 
it requires art and pains to set it at a distance, and make 
it its own object." — Locke, 



" So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man's 
mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof, that 



APPENDIX. 325 

breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions ; for as the 
sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so 
is it of the understanding ; the remedy whereof is not to 
quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the 
object." — Bacon : Advancement of Learning. 



" For however men may be satisfied with themselves, 
and rush into a blind admiration and almost adoration of 
the human mind, one thing is most certain, namely, that 
as an uneven mirror changes the rays proceeding from 
objects according to its own figure and position, so the 
mind, when affected by things through the senses, does 
not act in the most trustworthy manner, but inserts and 
mixes her own nature into that of things, whilst clearing 
and recollecting her notions." — Bacon : Distribution of 
the Work. 



" As far as relates to the first notions of the under- 
standing, not any of the materials which the understanding, 
when left to itself, has collected, are unsuspected by us ; 
nor will we confirm them unless they themselves be put 
upon their trial and be judged accordingly." — Ibid. 



" We have at length arrived at the important truth 
which now seems so very obvious a one, that the mind is 
to be known best by observation of the series of changes 
which it presents, and of all the circumstances which pre- 
cede and follow these ; that in attempting to explain its 
phenomena, therefore, we should know what these phe- 
nomena are, and that we might as well attempt to discover, 
by logic, unaided by observation or experiment, the various 
colored rays that enter into the composition of a sun- 
beam, as to discover by dialectic subtilties, a priori, the 
various feelings that enter into the composition of a single 
thought or passion." — Dr. Thomas Brown. 
28 



326 APPENDIX. 

" But when a thing lies still, unless something else stir 
it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth no one doubts of. 
But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be 
in motion unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason 
be the same, (namely, that nothing can change itself,) is 
not so easily assented to : for men measure not only 
other men, but all other things, by themselves." — Hobbes, 
on Imagination. 

" No one has yet been found possessed of sufficient 
firmness and severity to resolve upon and undertake the 
task of entirely abolishing common theories and notions, 
and applying the mind afresh, when thus cleared and 
levelled to particular researches. Hence our human reason 
is a mere farrago and crude mass, made up of a great deal 
of credulity and accident; and the puerile notions it origi- 
nally contracted." — Bacon: Novum Organum, A. 97. 



" It may happen in science, as in building, that an 
error in the foundation shall weaken the whole, and the 
further the building is carried on, the weakness shall be- 
come more apparent and the more threatening. Some- 
thing of this kind seems to have happened in our systems 
concerning the mind." — Reid. 



L— (Page 170.) 

" It appears but as yesterday ; yet, nevertheless, it was 
at the beginning of the year 1788. We were dining with 
one of our brethren at the Academy, — a man of consid- 
erable wealth and genius. The company was numerous 
and diversified — courtiers, lawyers, academicians, &c. ; 



APPENDIX. 327 

and, according to custom, there had been a magnificent 
dinner. At dessert, the wines of Malvoisin and Constantia 
added to the gayety of the guests that sort of liberty which 
is sometimes forgetful of bon ton: — we had arrived in the 
world, just at that time when any thing was permitted 
that would raise a laugh. Chamfort had read to us some 
of his impious and libertine tales, and even the great 
ladies had listened without having recourse to their fans. 
From this arose a deluge of jests against religion. One 
quoted a tirade from the Pucelle ; another recalled the 
philosophic lines of Diderot, — 

1 Et des boyaux du dernier pretre, ' 
Serrez le cou du dernier roi/ 

for the sake of applauding them. A third rose, and 
holding his glass in his hand, exclaimed, ; Yes, gentlemen, 
lam as sure that there is no God, as I am sure that Homer 
is a fool ;' and, in truth, he was as sure of the one as of 
the other. The conversation became more serious ; much 
admiration was expressed on the revolution, which Voltaire 
had effected, and it was agreed that it was his first claim 
to the reputation he enjoyed : — he had given the prevailing 
tone to his age, and had been read in the ante-chamber, as 
well as in the drawing-room. One of the guests told us, 
while bursting with laughter, that his hairdresser, while 
powdering his hair, had said to him, ; Do you observe, sir, 
that although I am but a poor miserable barber, I have no 
more religion than any other. ' We concluded that the 
revolution must soon be consummated, — that it was in- 
dispensable that superstition and fanaticism should give 
place to philosophy, and we began to calculate the proba- 
bility of the period when this should be, and which of 
the present company should live to see the reign of reason. 
The oldest complained that they could scarcely flatter 



328 APPENDIX. 

themselves with the hope ; the younger rejoiced, that they 
might entertain this very probable expectation ; — and they 
congratulated the Academy especially for having prepared 
this great work, and for having been the great rallying 
point, the centre, and the prime mover of the liberty of 
thought. 

" One only of the guests had not taken part in all the 
joyousness of this conversation, and had even gently and 
cheerfully checked our splendid enthusiasm. This was 
Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but unhappily in- 
fatuated with the reveries of the illuminati. He spoke, 
and with the most serious tone. 4 Gentlemen,' said he, ' be 
satisfied ; you will all see this great and sublime revolu- 
tion, which you so much desire. You know that I am a 
little inclined to prophecy : I repeat, you will see it.' He 
was answered by the common rejoinder, ' One need not be 
a conjurer to see that? ' Be it so ; but perhaps one must 
be a little more than conjurer, for what remains for me to 
tell you. Do you know what will be the consequence of 
this revolution, — what will be the consequence to all of 
you, and what will be the immediate result, — the well- 
established effect, — the thoroughly recognized conse- 
quence to all of you who are here present ? ' ' Ah ! ' said 
Condorcet, with his insolent, and half-suppressed smile, 
1 let us hear, — a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a 
prophet.' ' You, Monsieur de Condorcet, you will yield up 
your last breath on the floor of a dungeon; — you will 
die from poison, which you will have taken, in order to 
escape from execution, — from poison which the happiness 
of that time will oblige you to carry about your person.' 

" At first astonishment was most marked ; but it was 
soon recollected, that the good Cazotte is liable to dream- 
ing, though apparently wide awake, and a hearty laugh is 
the consequence. ' Monsieur Cazotte, the relation which 



APPENDIX. 329 

you give us is not so agreeable as your Diable Amoureux ' 

— (a novel of Cazotte's.) 

" ■ But what diable has put into your head this prison, 
and this poison, and these executioners ? What can all 
these have in common with philosophy and the reign of 
reason ? ' • This is exactly what I say to you ; it is in the 
name of philosophy, — of humanity, — of liberty ; — it is 
under the reign of reason, that it will happen to you thus, 
to end your career ; — and it will indeed be the reign of 
reason ; for then she will have her temples, and indeed, at 
that time, there will be no other temples in France than 
the temples of reason.' 'By my truth,' said Chamfort, 
with a sarcastic smile, ' you will not be one of the priests 
of those temples.' * I do not hope it ; but you, Monsieur 
de Chamfort, who will be one, and most worthy to be so, 
you will open your veins with twenty-two cuts of a razor, 
and yet you will not die till some months afterwards.' They 
looked at each other, and laughed again. c You, Monsieur 
Vicq d'Azir, you will not open your own veins, but you 
will cause yourself to be bled, six times in one day, during 
a paroxysm of the gout, in order to make more sure of 
your end, and you will die in the night. You, Monsieur 
de Nicolai, you will die upon the scaffold ; — you, M. Bailly, 
on the scaffold ; — you, Monsieur de Malesherbes, on the 
scaffold.' — 'Ah! God be thanked,' exclaimed Roucher, 
4 it seems that Monsieur has no eye, but for the Academy ; 

— of it he has just made a terrible execution, and I, thank 

heaven ' ' You ! you also will die upon the 

scaffold.' 4 O, what an admirable guesser ! ' was uttered 
on all sides ; ' he has sworn to exterminate us all.' ' No, 
it is not I who have sworn it.' — 'But shall we then be 
conquered by the Turks or the Tartars ? Yet again . . .' 
4 Not at all ; I have already told you, you will then be 
governed only by philosophy, — only by reason. They 

28* 



330 APPENDIX. 

who will thus treat you, will be all philosophers, — will 
always have upon their lips the selfsame phrases which 
you have been putting forth for the last hour, — will 
repeat all your maxims, — and will quote, as you have 
done, the verses of Diderot, and from La Pucelle.' They 
then whispered among themselves ; — 4 You see that he 
is gone mad ; ' — for he preserved all this time the most 
serious and solemn manner. ' Do you not see that he is 
joking ? and you know that, in the character of his jokes, 
there is always much of the marvellous.' ' Yes,' replied 
Chamfort, ' but his marvellousness is not cheerful ; — it 
savors too much of the gibbet, — and when will all this 
happen ? ' ' Six years will not pass over before all that I 
have said to you shall be accomplished.' 

" ' Here are some astonishing miracles,' (and this time, 
it was I myself who spoke,) ■ but you have not included 
me in your list.' ' But you will be there, as an equally 
extraordinary miracle ; you will then be a Christian.' 

" Vehement exclamations on all sides. ' Ah,' replied 
Chamfort, ' I am comforted — if we shall perish only when 
La Harpe shall be a Christian, we are immortal.' 

" ' As for that,' then observed Madame la Duchess de 
Grammont, 4 we women, we are happy to be counted for 
nothing in these revolutions : — when I say for nothing, it 
is not that we do not always mix ourselves up with them 
a little, but it is a received maxim, that they take no notice 
of us, and of our sex.' ' Your sex, ladies, will not protect 
you this time ; and you had far better meddle with nothing, 
for you will be treated entirely as men, without any differ- 
ence whatever.' ' But what, then, are you really telling 
us of, Monsieur Cazotte ? — You are preaching to us the 
end of the world.' ' I know nothing on this subject : but 
what I do know is, that you, Madame la Duchesse, will be 
conducted to the scaffold, you and many other ladies with 



APPENDIX. 331 

you, in the cart of the executioner, and with your hands 
tied behind your backs.' l Ah ! I hope that, in that case, 
I shall have a carriage hung in black.' * No, madame ; 
higher ladies than yourself will go like you in the common 
car, with their hands tied behind them.' l Higher ladies ! 
what ! the princesses of the blood ? ' ' Still more exalted 
personages.' — Here a sensible emotion pervaded the whole 
company, and the countenance of the host was dark and 
lowering : — they began to feel that the joke was become 
too serious. Madame de Grammont, in order to dissipate 
the cloud, took no notice of the reply, and contented her- 
self with saying, in a careless tone, — ' You see that he will 
not leave me even a confessor.' l No, madame, you will 
not have one, neither you, nor any one besides. The last 

victim to whom this favor will be afforded, will be ' 

He stopped for a moment. c Well ! who will then be the 
happy mortal, to whom this prerogative will be given ? ' 
; 'Tis the only one which he will have then retained — and 
that will be the king of France.' 

" The master of the house rose hastily, and every one 
with him. He walked up to M. Cazotte, and addressed 
him with a tone of deep emotion : — ; My dear Monsieur 
Cazotte, this mournful joke has lasted long enough. You 
carry it too far, — even so far as to derogate from the 
society in which you are, and from your own character.' 
Cazotte answered not a word, and was preparing to leave, 
when Madame de Grammont, who always sought to dis- 
sipate serious thought, and to restore the lost gayety of 
the party, approached him, saying, ' Monsieur the prophet, 
who has foretold us of our good fortune, you have told us 
nothing of your own.' He remained silent for some time, 
with downcast eyes. ' Madame, have you ever read the 
siege of Jerusalem, in Josephus ? ' c Yes ! who has not read 
that ! But answer as if I had never read it.' * Well, then, 



332 APPENDIX. 

madame, during the siege, a man for seven days in suc- 
cession, went round the ramparts of the city, in sight of 
the besiegers and besieged, crying unceasingly, with an 
ominous and thundering voice, Woe to Jerusalem ; and 
the seventh time he cried, Woe to Jerusalem, woe to myself 
— and at that moment an enormous stone, projected from 
one of the machines of the besieging army, struck him, 
and destroyed him.' 

" And, after this reply, M. Cazotte made his bow and 
retired. 

" When, for the first time, I read this astonishing pre- 
diction, I thought that it was only a fiction of La Harpe's, 
and that that celebrated critic wished to depict the aston- 
ishment which would have seized persons distinguished 
for their rank, their talents, and their fortune, if, several 
years before the revolution, one could have brought before 
them the causes which were preparing, and the frightful 
consequences which would follow. The inquiries which 
I have since made, and the information I have gained, 
have induced me to change my opinion. M. le Comte 
A. de Montesquieu, having assured me that Madame de 
Genlis had repeatedly told him that she had often heard 
this prediction related by M. de La Harpe, I begged of 
him to have the goodness to solicit from that lady more 
ample details. This is her reply : — 

"< November, 1825. 
" 4 1 think I have somewhere placed, among my souvenirs, 
the anecdote of M. Cazotte, but I am not sure. I have 
heard it related a hundred times by M. de La Harpe, be- 
fore the revolution, and always in the same form as I have 
met with it in print, and as he himself has caused it to be 
printed. This is all that I can say, or certify, or authen- 
ticate by my signature. — Comtesse de Genlis.' 

" ' I have also seen the son of M. Cazotte, who assured 



APPENDIX. 333 

me that his father was gifted in a most remarkable man- 
ner, with a faculty of pre-vision, of which he had num- 
berless proofs ; one of the most remarkable of which was, 
that on returning home on the day on which his daughter 
had succeeded in delivering him from the hands of the 
wretches who were conducting him to the scaffold, instead 
of partaking the joy of his surrounding family, he declared 
that in three days he should be again arrested, and that he 
should then undergo his fate ; and in truth he perished on 
the 25th of Sept. 1792, at the age of 72.' 

" In reference to the above narrative, M. Cazotte, jun., 
would not undertake to affirm that the relation of La Harpe 
was exact in all its expressions, but had not the smallest 
doubt as to the reality of the facts. 

" I ought to add, that a friend of Vicq d'Azir, an inhab- 
itant of Reimes, told me, that that celebrated physician, 
having travelled into Brittany some years before the revo- 
lution, had related to him, before his family, the prophecy 
of Cazotte. It seemed that notwithstanding his scepticism, 
Vicq d'Azir was uneasy about this prediction. 

" Letter on this subject addressed to M. Mialle by M. le 
Baron Delamothe Langon : — 

" 'You inquire of me, my dear friend, what I know 
concerning the famous prediction of Cazotte mentioned 
by La Harpe. I have only on this subject to assure you 
upon my honor that I have heard Madame le Comtesse 
de Beauharnais many time's assert that she was present at 
this very singular historical fact. She related it always in 
the same way, and with the accent of truth ; — her evi- 
dence fully corroborated by that of La Harpe. She spoke 
thus, before all the persons of the society in which she 
moved, many of whom still live, and could equally attest 
this assertion. 

" ' You may make what use you please of this commu- 
nication. 



334 APPENDIX. 

" l Adieu, my good old friend. I remain with inviolable 
attachment, yours, 

" ' Baron Delamothe Langon. 
" « Paris, Dec. 18th, 1833.' " 

— La Harpe : Posthumous Memoirs, Paris, 1806, vol. i. 
p. 62. 

A FEW PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC. 

" On the 12th of February, 1428, on which the disas- 
trous battle of Rouvray-Saint-Denis was fought, Joan said 
to M. Robert de Baudricourt, Governor of Vaucouleurs, 
that the king had suffered great losses before Orleans, and 
would experience further losses unless she were sent to 
him. The exactitude of this announcement determined 
Baudricourt to send her. 

" The next day, on her departure, many persons asked 
Joan how she could possibly undertake this journey, since 
the whole country was overrun with soldiers : she an- 
swered that she should find the way clear. No accident 
happened to her, nor to those who accompanied her, and 
even very few difficulties during the whole journey, which 
lasted eleven days, through an enemy's country, at the 
close of winter, over a distance of one hundred and fifty 
leagues, and intersected by several deep rivers. 

" On the 27th of February, when she was about to be 
presented to the king, a man on horseback who saw her 
passing, employed some blasphemous expressions. Joan 
heard him, and turning her head, said, ' Ha, dost thou 
blaspheme the name of God, and yet so near to death ? ' 
In about an hour afterwards, this man fell into the water, 
and was drowned. 

" The following month Joan informed the doctors, who 
were commissioned to examine her at Poictiers : — 

" 1. That the English would be beaten ; that they would 



APPENDIX. 335 

raise the siege of Orleans ; and that this city would be 
delivered from the said English ; 

" 2. That the king would be consecrated at Reims ; 

" 3. That the city of Paris would be restored to its 
loyalty ; 

" 4. That the Duke of Orleans would return from Eng- 
land. 

" The king, in council, having determined to send Joan 
to Orleans, they commissioned her to conduct a convoy of 
provisions of which the place stood in the greatest need. 
It was observed to her, that it would be a difficult enter- 
prise, considering its fortifications, and the English be- 
siegers, who were strong and powerful. l By the help of 
my God,' answered she, ■ we will put them into Orleans 
easily and without any attempt to prevent us on the part 
of the English.' 

M The generals of Charles VII. not daring to take the 
route which Joan had pointed out to them, the convoy 
was obliged to halt at some leagues from Orleans, from the 
want of water, and from adverse winds. Every body was 
confounded and in grief; but Joan announced that the 
wind would soon change, and that the provisions would 
be easily thrown into the town, in spite of the English : 
all which was completely verified. 

" The English retained one of the heralds whom Joan 
had sent to summon them to surrender; — they even 
wished to burn him alive ; — and they wrote to the uni- 
versity of Paris to consult upon the subject : Joan assured 
them, that they would do him no harm. 

" When Joan appeared on the redoubt, called the 
boulevard de la Bella-Croix, to summon them to raise the 
siege, these loaded her with abuse, especially one of the 
officers, to whom Joan replied, ■ that he spoke falsely, 
and in spite of them all they would soon depart ; but 



336 APPENDIX. 

V 

that he would never see it, and that many of his people 
would be killed.' In fact, when the fort of Tournelles 
was taken, this officer wished to make his escape by the 
bridge which separated the fort from the suburbs ; but an 
arch gave way beneath his feet, and he, with all his men, 
were drowned. 

" Having introduced the convoy of provisions and am- 
munition into Orleans, Joan foretold to the inhabitants, 
that in five days not an Englishman would remain before 
their walls. 

" On the 6th of May, Joan informed her confessor, 
that on the next day she should be wounded above the 
bosom, while before the fort at the end of the bridge. 
And in fact she received a lance between the neck and 
the shoulder, which passed out nearly a half a foot behind 
the neck. 

" On the morning of the 7th, her host having invited 
her to partake of some fish which had been brought him, 
she desired him to keep it till night, because she would 
then bring him a stranger who would do his part in eating 
it. She added, that after having taken the Tournelles, 
she would repass the bridge, — a promise which seemed 
impossible to any body, — but which nevertheless was ful- 
filled, like all the other impossibilities. 

" The irresolution of the king was the greatest punish- 
ment to Joan : ' I shall only continue for a year, and a 
very little more,' said she ; c I must try to employ that 
year well. 1 

" The Duchesse d'Alencon was greatly alarmed, on see- 
ing her husband at the head of the army, which was about 
to enforce the coronation of the king at Reims. Joan 
told her to fear nothing, — that she would bring him back 
safe and sound, and in a better condition than he was at 
that moment. 



APPENDIX. 337 

" At the attack of Jargean, the Due d'Alencon was 
attentively reconnoitring the outworks of the town, when 
Joan told him to remove from the spot on which he was 
standing, or that he would be killed by some warlike 
missile. The duke removed, and almost immediately 
afterwards, a gentleman of Anjou, by the name of M. de 
Lade, was struck in the very place which the duke had 
just left. 

" The English generals, Talbot, Searles, and FalstafF, 
having arrived with four thousand men to the relief of 
the Castle of Beaugenie, in order to raise the siege of that 
place, Joan predicted that the English would not defend 
themselves — would be conquered — and that this triumph 
would be almost bloodless on the part of the royal army 
— and that there would be very few — not quite to say 
no one — killed of the French combatants. In truth, 
they lost but one man, and almost all the English were 
killed or taken. 

" Joan had told the king not to fear any want of troops 
for the expedition to Reims, — for that there would be 
plenty of persons, and many would follow him ; in truth, 
the army increased visibly from day to day, and numbered 
twelve thousand men by the end of June, 1429. 

" When the army had arrived before Troyes, that city 
shut its gates, and refused to yield. After five days' wait- 
ing, and useless efforts of capitulation, the majority of 
the council advised to return to Gien ; but Joan declared 
that in less than three days she would introduce the king 
into the city by favor or by force. The chancellor said that 
they would even wait six days if they could be sure of 
the truth of her promises. ' Doubt nothing,' said she — 
v you will be master of the city to-morrow.'' Immediately 
preparations were made for the projected assault, which 
so alarmed the inhabitants and their garrison, that they 
capitulated next day. 
29 



338 APPENDIX. 

" Charles feared that the city of Reims would oppose a 
long resistance to his arms, and that it would be difficult 
to make himself master of it, because he was deficient in 
artillery. c Have no doubt,' said Joan, ' for the citizens of 
the town of Reims will anticipate you. Before you are 
close to the city, the inhabitants will surrender.' On the 
16th of July, the principal inhabitants of the city laid its 
keys at the feet of the king. 

" During her captivity, Joan made the following predic- 
tions on the 1st of March 1430, in the presence of fifty- 
nine witnesses, whose names are given faithfully by M. le 
Brun de Charmettes : ' Before seven years are past, the 
English will abandon a larger prize than they have done 
before Orleans, and will lose every thing in France. 

" ' They will experience the severest loss they have ever 
felt in France ; — and this will be by a great victory which 
God will bestow upon the French.' 

" Paris was actually retaken by the French under the 
command of the Marshal de Richemont and the Count de 
Dunois on the 14th of April, 1436. 

" As to the great victory which should prove so fatal to 
the English, M. le Brun thinks may be understood, either 
the battle of Tormigny, gained by the French in 1450, 
and which resulted in the conquest of Normandy, — or the 
battle of Castillon, fought in 1452, in which the renowned 
general Talbot perished, and which completed the submis- 
sion of la Guinne to France. 

" In order to explain the expression, will lose every thing 
in France, the same author recalls the fact, that the people 
in general restricted the term France to what had origi- 
nally composed the immediate dominion of Hugo Capet and 
his successors, as l'lsle de France, l'Orleannais, le Berri, 
la Touraine, &c. Thus Joan of Arc, born at Domremy, 
at the extremity of la Champagne, said that Saint Michel 
had ordered her to so into France." 



APPENDIX. 339 



K.-— (Page 172.) 

" The process of condensation, which formed a part of 
the doctrine of Anaximenes, and of the Ionian School, ap- 
pears to be going on before our eyes. This subject of 
investigation and conjecture is especially attractive to the 
imagination, for in the study of the animated circles of 
Nature, and of the action of all the moving forces of the 
universe, the charm that exercises the most powerful in- 
fluence on the mind is derived less from a knowledge of 
that which is, than from a perception of that which will 
be, even though the latter be nothing more than a new 
condition of a known material existence ; for of actual 
creation, of origin, of beginning of existence from non- 
existence, we have no experience, and can therefore form 
no conception." — Cosmos : Humboldt, on Celestial Phe- 
nomena. 

" Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or 
ceases to be ; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed ; 
but all is an aggregation or secretion of preexistent things ; 
so that 'all becoming' might more correctly be called 
1 becoming mixed,' and all corruption 4 becoming sepa- 
rate.' " — Anaxagoras. 



" Fools ! who think aught can begin to be, which for- 
merly was not. Or that aught which is, can perish and 
utterly decay. Another truth I can unfold ; no natural 
birth is there of mortal things ; nor death, destruction 
final ; nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separa- 
tion of the mingled, which are called a birth and death by 
ignorant mortals." — Empedocles. 



340 APPENDIX. 

" The world was made neither by god or man ; and it 
was, and is, and ever shall be, an ever-living fire in due 
measure self-enkindled, and in due measure self-extin- 
guished." — Heraclitus 



L._ .(Page 172.) 

" Where then shall we find proofs of the mind's influ- 
ence on the bodily structure ? of that mind which, like 
the corporal frame, is infantile in the child, manly in the 
adult, sick and debilitated in disease, frenzied or melan- 
choly in the madman, enfeebled in the decline of life, doting 
in decrepitude, and annihilated by death." — Lawrence. 



" Such as to each man is the nature of his many-jointed 
limbs, 
Such also is the intelligence of each man ; for it is 
The nature of limbs (organization) which thinketh in men, 
Both in one, and in all ; for the highest degree of organ- 
ization gives 
The highest degree of thought." — Parmenides. 



Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought : 
For without the thing in which it is announced 
You cannot find the thought ; 
For there is nothing, nor shall be, 
Except the existing." — Ibid. 



" But in proportion as certain observers arrived at the 
knowledge of the properties of bodies, they abandoned 
these external agents. Already Empedocles, Leucippus, 



APPENDIX. 341 

Democritus, the school of Hippocrates, the Stoics, Hera- 
clides, Epicurus, Asclepiades, Archigenes, Lucretius, Are- 
tseus, regarded life and all its operations as an effect of 
organization." — Gall, vol. ii. p. 14. 



" The natural philosophy of Democritus and some 
others, (who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame 
of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain 
itself, to infinite essays or proofs of nature which they 
term fortune,) seemeth to me, as far as I can judge by the 
recital and fragments which remain unto us, in particular- 
ities of physical causes, more real and better inquired than 
that of Aristotle and Plato ; whereof both intermingled 
Final Causes ; the one as a part of theology, the other as 
a part of logic, which were the favorite studies respec- 
tively of both those persons." — Bacon : Advancement of 
Learning. 

" For although the greatest generalities in nature must 
be positive, just as they are found, and, in fact, not 
cansable, yet the human understanding, incapable of rest- 
ing, seeks for something more intelligible. This, how- 
ever, whilst aiming at further progress, it falls back to 
what is actually less advanced, namely, Final Causes ; for 
they are clearly more allied to man's own nature than the 
system of the universe ; and from this source they have 
wonderfully corrupted philosophy." — Bacon : Nov. Org., 
A. 48. 



M. — (Page 175. 



Hobbes says of Harvey, " He is the only man I know, 
that, conquering envy, hath established a new doctrine in 
29* 



342 APPENDIX. 

his lifetime," — and yet twenty-five years elapsed before 
this was accomplished. And at Harvey's death, no phy- 
sician in Europe, above the age of forty, believed in his 
discovery. 

" The persecution of Harvey appears to have been 
prompted only by the mean passions of his contempora- 
ries. No other motive is obvious ; for it is difficult to see 
in what way ' the craft' was endangered. In this case, 
however, as in many others, it almost appeared as if men 
had some strong personal interest in keeping back the 
truth, so eagerly did they exert themselves to resist it." 
— Chambers' s Journal, vol. vi. p. 41. 



" Facts," says Sir C. Bell, " have been denied with a 
heat and pertinacity which I can never understand. 

" Whatever may be thought of the reasoning pursued 
in this volume, the facts admit of no contradiction : and, 
perhaps hereafter, curiosity may be excited, to know in 
what manner they were first received. The gratification 
in the inquiry has been very great ; the reception by the 
profession has been the reverse of what I expected. The 
early announcement of my occupation failed to draw one 
encouraging sentence from medical men. When the pub- 
lication of these papers by the Royal Society made it im- 
possible to overlook them altogether, the interest they 
excited drew countenance on those who opposed them, or 
who pretended to have anticipated them. To myself this 
has ceased to be of any consequence ; but I confess, I 
regret to leave those young men who have honorably and 
zealously assisted me in these inquiries, in the delusive 
hope of laboring to the gratification of their own pro- 
fession. The pleasure arising from the pursuit of natural 
knowledge, and the society of men of science, must be 



APPENDIX. 343 

their sufficient reward." — Sir C. BelVs Preface to 
" The Nervous System," 1830. 



" Democritus, the father of experimental philosophy, 
declared that he would prefer a discovery of one great 
cause of the works of nature to the diadem of Persia. He 
was accused of insanity ; and Hippocrates was ordered 
to inquire into the nature of his disorder. The physician 
had a conference with the philosopher, and declared 
that not Democritus, but his enemies, were insane." — 
Bacon : Holy War. 

*' Not the feeblest grandam, not the mowing idiot, but 
uses what spark of perception and faculty is left to chuckle 
and triumph in his or her opinion over the absurdities of 
all the rest. Difference from me is the measure of ab- 
surdity ; but one has a misgiving of being wrong." — 
Emerson. 

" But if any one be influenced by an inveterate uni- 
formity of opinion, as though it were the decision of time 
— let him learn that he is relying on a most fallacious and 
weak argument." — Bacon: Preface to Instauration. 



" Touching the operation upon the spirits, that they 
remain youthful, and renew their vigor, — thus much: 
which we have done more accurately, for that there is, for 
the most part, among the physicians, and other authors, 
touching these operations, a deep silence." — Bacon : 
History of Life and Death. 



" And even should the odium I have alluded to be 
avoided, yet it is sufficient to repress the increase of 
science that such attempts and industry pass unrewarded. 



344 APPENDIX. 

For the cultivation of science and its rewards belong not 
to the same individual. The advancement of science is 
the work of a powerful genius ; the prize and reward 
belong to the vulgar, or to princes who (with a few ex- 
ceptions) are scarcely moderately well informed. Nay, — 
such progress is not only deprived of the rewards and 
beneficence of individuals, but even of popular praise : for 
it is above the reach of the generality, and easily over- 
whelmed and extinguished by the winds of common 
opinion. It is not wonderful, therefore, that little success 
has * attended that which has been little honored." — 
Bacon: Nov. Org., Aph. 91, Part I. 



N. — (Page 176.) 

" In the progress of time I was declared old enough to 
be initiated into the mysteries of the Christian faith, and 
sanctified by my first participation in the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper. Whether I was fit for the holy ceremony 
was never asked at all. The Christianity of our enlight- 
ened Europe is for the most part mere matter of ceremony 
and habit, and the present representatives of the Apostles 
among our Christian congregations, trouble themselves 
often about little else than their own emoluments and 
dignities, while professing to be called to their holy office 
by a divine spirit." — Life of Zschokke, p. 13. 



" (At Havre) I found it no easy matter to procure a pas- 
sage for my Mulatto charge on board an American ship : 
nearer intercourse with him was thought offensive. When 
I took the boy with me to the table tfhote in the evening, 



APPENDIX. 345 

an American captain was about to quit the table in disgust, 
if his own wife had not prevented the commission of this 
folly ! The arrogant contempt of these Republicans for 
their colored fellow-creatures is known to all the world. 
Europeans justly think this prejudice ridiculous or revolt- 
ing ; yet, with all their supposed freedom from similar 
prejudices, they find the difference between noble and ig- 
noble blood, and belief in degradation through unequal 
marriages, as they are called, neither one nor the other. 
Do they stand one inch higher above the slough of mid- 
dle-age prejudice than the Americans ? In sad and sober 
earnest, our Europeans and Americans, so proud of their 
mental culture, their art, their science, and their Chris- 
tianity, seem to me, with their smooth moral pretences, 
without morality ; their systematized human slaughter, 
their justice-defying state maxims, not much wiser or 
more Christian than the world of heathen Athens and 
Rome, 2000 or 3000 years ago ! " — Life of Zschokke, 
p. 191. 



O. — (Page 177.) 

What a satire upon theology is the history of all faiths, 
and the ill feeling and confusion arising from the conflicts 
of opinion going on at this moment ! such disagreements 
among the professors being proof sufficient of funda- 
mental error and delusion — the badge of false science, 
as Bacon has it. There are as many shepherds as sheep ; 
and where every one is tinkling his little bell, in what 
direction should a poor fellow turn, who would willingly 
give up his conscience and his reason to be saved by the 
true specific ? Truly, in this age, a man may well be 



346 APPENDIX. 

puzzled to know where to go to get either his body or his 
soul healed ; and if in this dilemma you venture to think 
for yourselves, the whole host — sheep, shepherds, and 
all — come at you like a pack of wolves. And there is 
no peace for a thinking man or a suffering one, but in 
silence, or the common resource — hypocrisy. And, after 
a trial of thousands of years, where is the evidence of 
those fruits which the world has been promised, as the 
sure and only evidence of the true doctrine and inspired 
faith ? Where are we to look for purity, and peace, and 
good fellowship ? Have not the praiseworthy efforts of 
the Peace advocates been ridiculed on all sides ? " More 
Bibles," and " more churches," is the constant and ineffect- 
ual cry of the churchmen ; — whilst the legislator, seeing 
no chance of improvement by these or any other means he 
can devise, looks to his armies, and his ships, and his 
police force, and Acts of Parliament, as the only means of 
securing quiet and protection for society. Barbarians all ! 
for how shall we rule nature, except by obedience to the 
laws of nature ? And who, of our legislators or bishops, 
pretend to know these laws, or ever appeal to them, or 
even acknowledge their existence ? Yet, except by the 
knowledge of nature's laws in the constitution of Man, 
how can we exhibit any certain means of ameliorating 
his condition ? What use the sumptuous ceremonies of 
the church and court, the gabbling of creeds and the bow- 
ing of heads, and bending of knees — the standing up for 
one prayer, the sitting down for another ; first in one pul- 
pit, then in another a little lower — then at the altar ; now 
in one dress, now another — with all the hubbub about 
inessentials, stupid paraphernalia, and lifeless ceremonies, 
taking much more heed of what clothes shall be put on 
than of the truth which should be naked and without 
covering at all ; — in the name of common sense, what is it 



APPENDIX. 347 

all worth if we do not accomplish the well being of man- 
kind ? The little that is known of Man's nature is not 
acted upon, or is used against him. We boast of our 
breeds of cattle and our dogs — of our tulips and our fine 
geraniums — of the gas lightings and the steam engine, 
and pass ourselves by, " and the passions which govern 
all the rest are themselves ungoverned," and the under- 
standing without law. 

The only way to clear the mind of doubt or from con- 
fusion, is by drawing closer to the object, and to the 
material conditions. Men have deserted the substance 
for the shadow — we must draw them back again from the 
shadow to the substance. Theologians can hardly tolerate 
one another, except in the supposition that they may all 
be wrong. But let no one suppose, for a moment, that I 
wish to uproot the faculty of reverence and love, and true 
humility, or that I desire to cast a blight upon the pure 
and even prayerful aspirations towards infinite excellence 
and wisdom, acknowledging those higher truths beyond 
our understanding, and the reach of our senses ; for there 
is a holy temple in the heart and understanding where each 
may worship according as his feelings, his understanding, 
and his conscience dictates ; and in lonely hours, from the 
promptings of that still small voice, acknowledging cheer- 
fully the divine rule of the God of nature, shall we seek 
to attain to holier thought and purer aspirations. All that 
I desire is from the temple of the true God to cast out a 
trading theology, selfish and false theories, hypocrisy and 
the worship of images and idols of all descriptions — 
whether in the form of man or beast, or other thing 
existing upon the face of the earth or in the water under 
the earth. I would destroy the worship of gold, of power, 
of life, nor acknowledge any capricious, lawless rule in the 
" web of fate." No, the hard atheistical philosophy of 



348 APPENDIX. 

mere sense reason and "human wisdom" is not my phi- 
losophy — that " philosophy which is not harsh and crabbed 
as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo's lute." 
All nature is miraculous — man is a miracle to himself, and 
his mind a perpetual revelation, on, and on, and on, in 
the march of time. If Christ could now view the systems 
which have arisen from his life, he would wish that he 
had never been born, so strange has the perversion been, 
and so strange the contradictory interpretations. We must 
become again as little children, and learn — not from the 
Bible of man, erroneously supposed divine, but from the 
Bible of God, which is nature — a language and revelation 
unchangeable and universal ; but whilst men speak irrev- 
erently of matter and slightingly of nature, are they not 
degraded by falsehood, and to be born again ere they can 
appreciate high things ? It is true, that I see no evidence 
of a future life, and I desire to see men raised above the 
want, believing with the pious and excellent Zschokke 
that it is a higher moral condition to live without such a 
hope ; but I would not diminish one happy and good im- 
pulse when consistent with truth, but let the whole man 
and all his powers be freely and fully developed. Like 
the little moth at the candle, the child man is ever flutter- 
ing in his hope that he may touch the light of infinity, 
and fearing lest he be cast back into darkness. Under 
the influence of damp and darkness, a man desires life 
and continued existence, a passing from infinite night to in- 
finite day. When under the influence of high and elevating 
joy, and a bright atmosphere — when in our true normal 
and best condition — we are ready to die and melt away 
into the form and nature of the light and beauty with which 
we are surrounded ; but the understanding and " spiritual" 
being is clouded by a depressing theology and vulgar no- 
tions. What Englishman will believe you, that the close 



APPENDIX. 349 

stove of Russia is more agreeable and healthful than our 
bright-blazing, open fires ? but such is the fact. Nor will 
men easily loosen from their errors, and enter the temple 
of nature, and of the God of nature, which is, that infinite 
cause in nature, eternal, omnipresent, and without change 
— the principle of matter and of the properties of matter, 
motion, and the mind of matter, but neither matter, nor 
property, nor mind. What it is, is beyond our compre- 
hension, and folly to suppose. The finite cannot grasp the 
infinite, nor phenomena a cause. 



p. _ (Page 180.) 

CURATIVE POWER OF GREATRAKES. 

" The seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth cen- 
turies present us with several examples of private persons, 
who were supposed to have a miraculous power of curing 
by touch. The most celebrated was a Mr. Valentine Great- 
rakes, a Protestant gentleman of the county of Waterford, 
born in 1628 — a thoroughly sound Christian and good 
man, and occupying a highly respectable place in society. 
It was some time after the Restoration, while acting as clerk 
of the peace to the county of Cork, that Mr. Greatrakes 
first arrived at a conviction of his possession of healing 
powers. In an account of himself, which he wrote in 
1666, he says, ' About four years since, I had an impulse 
which frequently suggested to me that there was bestowed 
on me the gift of curing the king's evil, which, for the 
extraordinariness thereof, I thought fit to conceal for some 
time; but at length I told my wife ; for, whether sleeping 
30 



350 APPENDIX. 

or waking, I had this impulse; but her reply was, tha. . 
was an idle imagination. But to prove the contrary, one 
William Maher, of the parish of Lismore, brought his son 
to my wife, who used to distribute medicines in charity to 
the neighbors ; and my wife came and told me, that I had 
now an opportunity of trying my impulse, for there was 
one at hand that had the evil grievously in the eyes, 
throat, and cheeks ; whereupon I laid my hands on the 
places affected, and prayed to God, for Jesus' sake, to heal 
him. In a few days afterwards, the father brought his 
son with the eye so changed, that the eye was almost quite 
whole ; and to be brief (to God's glory I speak it), within 
a month he was perfectly healed, and so continues.' 

" Another person, still more afflicted, was soon after 
cured by Mr. Greatrakes in the same manner ; and he then 
began to receive an 4 impulse,' suggesting that he could 
cure other diseases. This he soon had an opportunity of 
proving, for ' there came unto me a poor man, with a 
violent pain in his loins, that he went almost double, and 
having also a grievous ulcer in his leg, very black, who 
desired me, for God's sake, to lay my hands on him ; 
whereupon I put my hands on his loins and flank, and im- 
mediately went the pains out of him, so that he was 
relieved, and could stand upright without trouble ; the ulcer 
also in his leg was healed ; so that, in a few days, he re- 
turned to his labor as a mason.' 

" He now became extensively known for his gift of heal- 
ing, and was resorted to by people from greater distances, 
with the most of whom he was equally successful. Wounds, 
ulcers, convulsions, and dropsy, were among the maladies 
which he cured. In an epidemic fever he was also eminently 
successful, healing all who came to him. So great was the 
resort to his house, that all the outhouses connected with 
it were usually filled with patients, and he became so much 



APPENDIX. 351 

* engaged in the duty of healing them, as to have no time 
to attend to his own affairs, or to enjoy the society of his 
family. The clergy of the diocese at length took alarm at 
his proceedings, and he was cited by the Dean of Lismore 
before the Bishop's Court, by which he was forbidden to 
exercise his gift for the future — an order which reminds 
us of the decree of Louis XIV., commanding that no more 
miracles should be performed at the tomb of the Abbe 
Paris. Mr. Greatrakes, nevertheless, continued to heal as 
formerly, until his fame reached England. In August, 
1665, he received a visit from Mr. Flamstead, the astron- 
omer, who was afflicted with a constitutional weakness ; 
but he failed in this case. Early in the ensuing year, he 
went to England for the purpose of curing the Viscountess 
Conway of an inveterate headache, in which also he failed. 
But, while residing at Ragley, with the Conway family, he 
cured many hundreds afflicted with various diseases. Lord 
Conway himself, in a letter to his brother, thus speaks of 
the healer : ' I must confess, that before his arrival, I 
did not believe the tenth part of those things which I have 
been an eye-witness of ; and several others, of as accurate 
judgment as any in the kingdom, who are come hither out 
of curiosity, do acknowledge the truth of his operations. 
This morning, the Bishop of Gloucester recommended to 
me a prebend's son in his diocese, to be brought to him 
for a leprosy from head to foot, which hath been judged 
incurable above ten years, and in my chamber he cured him 
perfectly ; that is, from a moist humor, it was imme- 
diately dried up, and began to fall off; the itching was 
quite gone, and the heat of it taken away. The youth was 

transported to admiration After all, I am far 

from thinking that his cures are at all miraculous. I 
believe it is by a sanative virtue and a natural efficiency, 
which extends not to all diseases, but is much more 



352 APPENDIX. 

proper and effectual to some than to others, as he doth 
also despatch some with a great deal of ease, and others 
not without a great deal of pains.' 

" He was now invited by the king to come to London ; 
whither he accordingly proceeded ; and as he went along 
through the country, we are told that the magistrates of 
cities and towns begged of him that he would come and 
cure their sick. The king, though not fully persuaded of 
his wonderful gift, recommended him to the notice of his 
physicians, and permitted him to do all the good he pleased 
in London. He went every day to a particular part of the 
city, where a prodigious number of people, of all ranks, and 
of both sexes, assembled. The only visible means he took 
to cure them, was to stroke the parts affected. The gout, 
rheumatism, and other painful affections, were driven by 
his touch from one part to another, until he got them ex- 
pelled at the very extremities of the body, after which the 
patient was considered as cured. Such phenomena could 
not fail, in the most superstitious era of our history, to ex- 
cite great wonder, and attract universal attention. The 
cavalier wits and courtiers ridiculed them, as they ridiculed 
every thing else that appeared serious. St. Evremond, 
then at court, wrote a sarcastic novel on the subject, under 
the title of the Irish Prophet. Others, including several 
of the faculty, defended him. It even appears that the 
Royal Society, unable to refute the facts, were compelled 
to account for them as produced by \ a sanative contagion 
in Mr. Greatrake's body, which had an antipathy to some 
particular diseases, and not to others.' They also pub- 
lished some of his cures in their Transactions. A severe 
pamphlet by Dr. Lloyd, chaplain of the Charter-House, 
caused Mr. Greatstakes at this time to publish the account 
of himself which has been already quoted. In it, he says, 
' Many demand of me why some are cured, and not all. 



APPENDIX. 353 

To which question I answer, that God may please to make 
use of such means, by me, as shall operate according to the 
dispositions of the patient, and therefore cannot be ex- 
pected to be alike efficacious in all. They also demand of 
me why some are cured at once and not all ? and why the 
pains should fly immediately out of some, and take such 
ambages in others ? and why it should go out of some at 
their eyes, and some at their fingers, some at their ears or 
mouths ? To which I say, if all these things could have 
a plain account given of them, there would be no cause to 
count them strange. Let them tell me what substance 
that is which removes and goes out with such expedition, 
and it will be more easy to resolve their questions. Some 
will know of me why or how I do pursue some pains from 
place to place till I have chased them out of the body, by 
laying my hands on the outside of the clothes only (as is 
usual), and not all pains? To which I answer, that — 
and others have been abundantly satisfied that it is so — 
though I am not able to give a reason, yet I am apt to be- 
lieve there are some pains which afflict men after the 
manner of evil spirits, which kind of pains cannot endure 
my hand, nay, not my gloves, but fly immediately, though 
six or eight coats or cloaks be put between the person and 
my hand, as at the Lady Ranelagh's at York House in 
London, as well as in Ireland, has been manifested. Now, 
another question will arise, whether the operation of my 
hand proceeds from the temperature of my body, or from 
a divine gift, or from both. To which I say, that I have 
reason to believe that there is some extraordinary gift of 
God.' At the end of his narrative are appended a number 
of certificates as to his cures, signed by the most respect- 
able, pious, and learned persons of the day, amongst 
whom are the Honorable Robert Boyle, Bishop Rust, Dr. 
Cudworth, Dr. Patrick, Dr. Whichcot, and Dr. Wilkins. In 
30* 



354 APPENDIX. 

1667, he returned to Ireland, where he lived for many- 
years, but without sustaining his reputation for curing. It 
appears, however, that, upon the strictest inquiry, no 
blemish could ever be found to attach to the character of 
this extraordinary man. All he did was done in a spirit 
of pure piety and benevolence. The truth of the im- 
pressive words with which he concludes his own narrative 
was never challenged — ' Whether I have done my duty 
as a Christian, in employing that talent which God had 
entrusted me withal, to the good of people distressed and 
afflicted, or no, judge you and every good man. Thus 
far I appeal to the world whether I have taken rewards, 
deluded or deceived any man. All further I will say is, 
that I pray I may never be weary of well doing, and that 
I may be found a faithful servant when I come to give up 
my last account.' " * — Chambers's Journal, No. 314. 

Besides Greatrakes, there was De Loutherbourg, the 
well-known painter : Gassner, a Roman Catholic priest in 
Swabia : and an English gardener, named Levret, who 
used to say that so much virtue went out of him that he 

* " Mr. Southey, in his « Omniana,' quotes some curious pas- 
sages respecting Greatrakes, from a contemporary writer, Henry 
More. It seems to have been More's opinion that there may be a 
sanative and healing contagion, as well as a morbid and venomous. 
He states that Greatrake's hand had f a sort of herbous, aromatic 
scent,' and that he could also cure by his spittle. More was not 
surprised by the cures of Greatrakes, having, ten years before, 
seen « one Coker,' who, ' by a very gentle chafing or rubbing of 
his hand,' cured diseases, but not so many as Greatrakes, who 
was successful, he says, in • cancers, scrofulas, deafness, king's 
evil, headache, epilepsy, fevers, (though quartan ones,) leprosy, 
palsy, tympany, lameness, numbness of limbs, stone, convulsions, 
phthisic, sciatica, ulcers, pains of the body, nay, blind and dumb 
in some measure, and I know not but he cured the gout.' More, 
at the same time, states, that « he did not succeed in all his appli- 
cations, nor were his cures always lasting.' " 



APPENDIX. 355 

was more exhausted by touching thirty or forty people 
than by digging eight roods of ground. — H. G. A. 



" In almost every canton of Switzerland are found per- 
sons endowed with the mysterious natural gift of discover- 
ing, by a peculiar sensation, the existence of subterranean 
waters, metals, or fossils. I have known many of them, 
and often put their marvellous talents to the proof. One 
of these was the Abbot of the Convent of St. Urban, in 
the Canton of Lucerne, a man of learning and science ; 
and another, a young woman, who excelled all I have 
ever known. I carried her and her companion with me 
through several districts entirely unknown to her, but with 
the geological formation of which, and the position of its 
salt and sweet waters, I was quite familiar, and I never 
once found her deceived. The results of the most care- 
ful observation have compelled me at length to renounce 
the obstinate suspicion and incredulity I at first felt on 
this subject, and have presented me with a new phase of 
nature, although one still involved in enigmatical obscurity. 
To detail circumstantially every experiment I made to 
satisfy myself on the point, would take up too much 
space at present ; but I think it right to mention some of 
the causes which have led me occasionally to vary from 
others in my views of nature and of God." — Life of 
Zschokke, p. 143. 



La Physique Occulte, ou Traite de la Baguette Divina- 
ioire, par M. L. L. de Vallemont, M. D., SfC. 

" On the 5th of July, 1692, a dealer in wine and his 
wife residing at Lyons were murdered in a cellar, for the 
sake of robbing them of a sum of money kept in a shop 
hard by, which was at the same time their chamber. All 



356 APPENDIX. 

this was executed with such promptitude and secrecy 
that no one had witnessed the crime, and the assassins 
escaped. 

" A neighbor, struck with horror at the enormity of the 
crime, having remembered that he knew a man named 
Jacques Aymar, a wealthy peasant, who could follow the 
track of thieves and murderers, induced him to come to 
Lyons, and introduced him to the king's attorney general. 
This peasant assured the functionary that if they would 
lead him to the place where the murder was committed, in 
order that he might receive from it a certain influence, he 
would assuredly trace the steps of the guilty parties, and 
would point them out wherever they were. He added, 
that for his purpose he should make use of a rod of wood, 
such as he was in the habit of using to find springs of 
water, metals, and hidden treasure. The man was con- 
ducted to the cellar where the murders were committed. 
There he was seized with emotion ; his pulse rose as if 
he were suffering from a violent fever, and the forked rod 
which he held in his hands turned rapidly over the two 
places where the murdered bodies had lain. 

" Having received the impression, Aymar, guided by his 
rod, passed through the streets through which the assassins 
had fled. He entered the courtyard of the archbishop's 
palace. Arriving at the gate of the Rhone, which was shut, 
it being night, he could then proceed no further. The next 
day he went out of the town by the bridge of the Rhone, 
and, always guided by the rod, he went to the right along 
the bank of the river. Three persons, who accompanied 
him, were witnesses that he sometimes recognized the 
tracks of three accomplices, and that sometimes he found 
only two. In this uncertainty he was led by the rod to the 
house of a gardener, where he was enlightened as to the 
number of the criminals. For, on his arrival, he main- 



APPENDIX. 357 

tained that they had touched a table, and that of three 
bottles which were in the room, they had touched one, over 
which the rod visibly rotated. In short, two boys of nine 
and ten years of age, who, fearing their father's anger, 
had at first denied the fact, at last acknowledged that 
three men, whom they described, had entered the house, 
and had drunk the wine which was contained in the bot- 
tles indicated by the peasant. As they were assured by 
the declaration of the children, they did not hesitate to go 
forward with Ay mar, half a league lower than the bridge 
on the bank of the Rhone. All along the bank for this 
distance the footsteps of the criminals were traced. Then 
they must have entered a boat. Aymar followed in 
another on their track as clearly by water as by land ; 
and his boat was made to go through an arch of the 
bridge of Vienne, which is never used, upon which it was 
concluded that these wretches had no boatman, since they 
wandered out of their way. 

" On the voyage, Aymar went ashore at all the places 
where the fugitives had landed, went straight to their 
coverts, and recognized, to the great surprise of the hosts 
and spectators, the beds on which they had slept, the tables 
on which they had eaten, and the pots and glasses they 
had touched. 

" He arrived at the camp of Sablon, where he was 
considerably agitated. He believed that in the crowd of 
soldiers he should find the murderers. Lest the soldiers 
should ill-treat him, he feared to operate with his rod. 
He returned to Lyons, whence they made him go back to 
the camp of Sablon by water, having furnished him with 
letters of recommendation. The criminals were no longer 
to be found there. He followed them to the fair of 
Beaucaire, in Languedoc, and always remarked, in his 
course, the beds, the tables, the seats, where they had been. 



358 APPENDIX. 

" At Beaucaire, the rod conducted him to the gate of 
a prison, where he was positive one of the wretches would 
be found. Fourteen of the prisoners were paraded before 
him, and the rod turned on a man with a humped back, 
who had been sent to the prison about one hour before for 
a petty larceny. The peasant did not hesitate to declare 
his conviction that the humpbacked man was one of the 
assassins ; but he continued to search for the others, and 
found that they had gone towards Nismes. No more was 
done at that time. They transferred the humpbacked 
man to Lyons. On the journey he asseverated his inno- 
cence ; but finding that all the hosts, at whose inns he 
had lodged, recognized him, he avowed that he had been 
the servant of two men of Provence who had engaged him 
to join them in this foul deed : that these men had com- 
mitted the murder, and had taken the money, giving him 
but six crowns and a half from their booty of one hundred 
and thirty crowns. He corroborated the accuracy of the 
indications of the peasant as to the gardener's house, the 
camp of the Sablon, the fair of Beaucaire, and the other 
places through which the three had passed, extending 
over forty-five French leagues. All these things, of course, 
excited immense interest. At Lyons, many repetitions of 
the observations respecting the turning of the rod in the 
cellar were made in presence of many persons. Monsieur 
FAbbe Bignon gives his testimony to the truth of the 
statement of facts, in a letter inserted by Vallemont in his 
work. There can be no doubt that such statements require 
very strong corroboration, and here they apparently obtain 
it. Vallemont, quoting the authority of the Royal Society 
of London, in the second part of the history, seventeenth 
section, one hundred and twenty-fifth page, says, that in 
all countries where men are governed by laws, the testi- 
mony in a matter of life and death, of only two or three 



APPENDIX. 359 

witnesses, is required : but is it, then, treating an affair 
of physics equitably, when the concurrence of sixty or a 
hundred persons is insufficient? It is difficult to define 
the just boundaries of credulity ; but in all these recitals 
of histories of events, there is this general consent, that in 
those who can make use of the rod, there is always an 
agitation, a fever, or some sensation which indicates a 
nervous commotion ; and the best evidence of the closest 
investigation goes to the point that most frequently the 
rod is of hazel wood. How far these stories tend to the 
conclusion that organic tests appear to require the re- 
agencies of organic force is, at present, a matter of specu- 
lation ; but it is to be hoped, that the effort to attract 
serious attention to this class of facts is not uninteresting 
or unimportant." 



a. — (Page 181.) 

Mr. Sandby, in supporting his belief that the reputed 
scripture miracles are matters wholly beyond the powers 
of nature, and, consequently, that a faith in them need not 
be shaken by a full recognition of the facts of mesmerism, 
says, " Thus was it with astronomy, with chemistry, with 
geology. The Bible speaks of the rising of the sun, but 
Copernicus and Galileo were charged with upsetting the 
Bible, for they proved that the sun was the centre of its 
system, and, consequently, did not rise to gladden the 
earth. The theory of another hemisphere was heretical 
for a season, and Columbus was, in turn, taxed with 
weakening the validity of scripture. Cuvier, in like man- 
ner, was treated as the antagonist of Moses ; and Gall 
was accused of leading his followers to a belief in the 



360 APPENDIX. 

coarsest materialism. And thus it went on for a season, 
then trembled at the truth ; and the truth itself lay hid 
behind the mists of a partial knowledge and discovery. 
Soon, however, a brighter state of things came on. Pro- 
founder researches dispelled the anxiety of the timid, 
faith and science were not found incompatible." This is 
a somewhat startling assertion ; and one would be glad to 
learn what those " profound researches " are which have 
charmed away the materialism of Gall, and reconciled the 
facts of geology, and astronomy, and chemistry, to the 
scripture accounts. Mr. Sandby's report is, however, 
sufficient proof of the evil to science resulting from an 
ignorant belief in supernatural causes, and of interruptions 
to the eternal rule and laws of nature. Is not the very 
fact of his writing a book to show that the blessings of 
mesmerism are the " gift of God," and not of the devil, 
sufficient proof of the still existing and inveterate oppo- 
sition of religious fancies to the facts of nature — and that, 
" in short," as Bacon says, " you may find all access to any 
species of philosophy, however pure, intercepted by the 
ignorance of divines ? " But what is true in the matter is 
this : that fact, always, in time, triumphs over fancy ; and 
the religious world become reconciled to new inconsisten- 
cies in the faith of their childhood or adoption. When a 
certain priest was asked how he could reconcile his belief 
in transubstantiation, he replied, that he had swallowed the 
apple of Eve in his youth, and had found no difficulty in 
digesting any thing else. The savage who was told by the 
missionary that after his death he would have to meet his 
father in heaven, replied — " Meet my father in heaven ! 
why, we ate him last week." I do not state this in ridi- 
cule, but in most solemn sadness. Men must either set up 
reason in the judgment seat, or be content to receive all 
things as from the authority of a Pope. 



APPENDIX. 36 1 

Men strain at a gnat and swallow a camel — Let them 
swallow the camel or reject the whole : for reason only 
admits authorities, says Bacon, as " counsels to advise, not 
as dictators to command." The scriptures cannot be recon- 
ciled with themselves ; much less with nature. It seems 
to me, the errors of scripture consist in historical error, 
in scientific error, in moral error. — The accounts are full 
of false or exaggerated • statements by enthusiasts and de- 
ceivers ; facts became distorted by repetition, and by the 
coloring of existing superstitions, and men were deceived 
by words and myths — each of the Idols described by Bacon 
was in full operation. Supernatural causes were assigned 
for the commonest facts — and it was thought to be abso- 
lutely necessary to govern the multitude by imposing on 
them. Even Plato talks of administering untruth as a 
drug. There has always been a rule of terror : and terrors 
always produce phantoms before which the poor faculty of 
reason, developed in ignorance, become prostrate. Rulers 
encouraged the folly ; and the folly became orthodox 
belief : and it then became the policy, as with Solon and 
many of the most worthy authorities, not to give the people 
what was most true and consequently best, but the best 
they were likely to receive ; for established error is the 
worst of all tyrants : but to a certain extent of course this 
policy was wise, and essential in its place in progress. It 
was supposed, as it is still supposed, that foretelling events 
was a matter beyond nature. The prophets believed them- 
selves inspired, as they do now. They dreamed dreams, 
and saw visions ; and they were not then able to interpret 
their true nature, or separate the true insight or foresight 
from the false appearances, or recognize the true cause 
in their own abnormal or peculiar condition. It was so 
with the greatest minds. It was so with Christ. It was 
so with Socrates. It was so with Swendenborg. It was 
31 



362 APPENDIX. 

so lately with Davis in America : and so it is with a 
hundred others in our own country, and at this day, and 
in all parts of the world : but the crowning error was to 
suppose the fundamental principle — the inherent inter-de- 
termining character — or the " nature of nature " as Bacon 
terms it — to be of the nature of man, who is a result in 
nature : that the root was the same as the flower. Thus 
man, looking into the depths of the well for the truth that 
was at the bottom, was deceived by his own image on the 
surface. Then there grew up the fictions of abstract 
" forms " and of intelligence in nature : and not content 
with considering mind and motion as phenomena of matter 
and nonentities, as much so as time and space, they em- 
bodied these phenomena, calling them spirits or souls, and, 
in reality, came back to matter. The very life and prin- 
ciple of matter they could only conceive as matter, and 
named it spirit or breath of life. The same philosophers 
would at one time designate mind as a phenomenon or 
action of a soul, the body or cause of it, and liken it to 
music ; at another time, thought or the conscious phenom- 
enon itself to be the soul and its own cause. The theories 
are contradictory and endless. Here is an example of a 
modern authority, the pious Schlegel, from his Philosophy 
of Life : " The existence of the brutes is simple, because 
in them the soul is completely mixed up and merged in 
the organic body, and is one with it ; on the destruction of 
the latter it reverts to the elements, or is absorbed in the 
general soul of nature." And again : " Triple is the na- 
ture of man, but fourfold is the human consciousness ; for 
spirit or mind, like the soul, divides and falls asunder, or 
rather is split and divided into two powers or halves — the 
mind, namely, into understanding and will, the soul into 
reason and fancy." Thus complexing the question strange- 
ly enough, and making his soul and mind separate per- 



APPENDIX. 363 

tions of the conscious phenomenon, just as if in the rainbow 
we should call violet and blue soul, and green and yellow, 
mind. Was there ever such confusion of ideas ? Spirit 
or soul — the substance, entity, and body of thought, could 
not explain thought — or be thought, any more than brain 
is thought. It seems to me that spiritualists and material- 
ists — so called — have fallen, without knowing it, into 
similar views and the same error. Nor have any of the 
supposed revelations at all cleared the question, or done 
any thing but confuse men the more, retarding the prog- 
ress of real science and clear notions. 

Nor can we marvel at such delusion and confusion, 
when we find even among divines, in this " enlightened 
age," one asserting a fact to be miraculous, and a divine 
favor, and another asserting that it is the doings of the 
devil : whilst a third, without inquiry, refuses evidence of 
most ample and unquestionable testimony, and declares, in 
the conceit of his own wisdom, that such attested facts are 
mere delusions. Now we have Mr. Sandby remonstrating 
with the world against the supposition that certain phenom- 
ena of mesmerism and of somnambulism are miraculous, 
whilst in his own turn — not recognizing the broad fact, 
that all belief in supernaturalism is but a measure of igno- 
rance — he rests wholly satisfied with his advance, and 
ability to give a final judgment, and declare the limit of 
the possible in nature, and to proclaim the supernatural 
character, at least, of some of the " miracles." But I 
deny Mr. Sandby's consistency in giving any such judg- 
ment, even granting the authenticity of the narratives ; for 
the matters referred to are no more seeming impossible to 
his mind, than are other facts which he recognizes as 
truths in nature so to other minds. This inconsistency 
is not from any want of good common sense, but only 
exhibits the blinding influence of his imbibed opinions and 



364 APPENDIX. 

clerical position : nor can my intelligent friend object to 
this argument against finality or limitation — for it is 
precisely what he has so ably urged against M'Neile ; and 
it is what every discoverer in mesmerism has had to urgo 
against the " human reason " so nicely defined by Bacon, — 
of churchmen and others. " Knowledge comes, but wisdom 
lingers ; " nor does the history of the world's errors seem 
to help us much : yet how shallow all our knowledge ! what 
depth in our ignorance ! How little we know, and there- 
fore can conceive, of the possible in nature, or what is the 
power of true faith ! or rather of that power which, being 
developed, induces faith — for faith, of course, like will, is 
not a power, but only the final result and evidence of 
power — the evidence of a power or truth within us and 
within the nature of things. It is the conscious form of 
the intuitive sense. All mind phenomena are but the re- 
sult and concomitant of power or action, an expression, so 
to speak — the fleeting form and evidence of existence and 
of the forces of nature ; but a passage in time, and flowing 
away never to return, any more than the same beauty or 
form of the same rose can ever be again. The new spring 
brings a new birth of similar and beautiful roses out of 
the old materials. Mind is the last result — like the form 
of beauty. " Last, the bright consummate flower-spirit's 
odorous breath," is Milton's beautiful simile. But let us 
be patient, and wait with reverence upon nature — for it is 
the doing — the progress rather than any ultimate or full 
result, that is to be obtained. The world is but in its baby 
life, and we shall not live to see its manhood, when uni- 
versal law and a true philosophy shall be recognized, and 
become the basis of men's actions ; and all the false sys- 
tems now existing will have passed away. In the mean 
time, I would say with Democritus, that " I would prefer 
the discovery of one of the causes of the works of nature 



APPENDIX. 365 

to the diadem of Persia ; " and with Meric Casaubon, that 
" I meddle not with policy, but nature : nor with evil men 
so much, as the evil consequences of the ignorance of 
natural causes My business shall be, as by exam- 
ple of all professions in all ages, to show how men have 
been prone upon some grounds of nature, producing some 
extraordinary, though not supernatural effects, really, 
not hypocritically, yet falsely and erroneously 'to deem 
themselves or their co-religionists inspired : ' and my wish 
is, ' to dive into the dark mysteries of nature, for probable 
confirmation of natural operations falsely deemed super- 
natural.' " — Treatise on Enthusiasm, 1655, c. i. p. 4. 
See Mr. Sandby^s Account of Miracles and Mesmerism, 
Devotional Ecstasies, Sfc. — H. G. A. 



R.— (Page 181.) 

•• Spinoza in this," (his political treatise,) " as in his 
other writings, is more fearless than Hobbes ; and though 
he sometimes may throw a light veil over his abjuration 
of moral and religious principle, it is frequently placed in 
a more prominent view than his English precursor in the 
same system had deemed it secure to advance. Yet, so 
slight is often the connection between theoretical tenets 
and human practice, that Spinoza bore the character of a 
virtuous and benevolent man. We do not know, indeed, 
how far he was placed in circumstances to put his fidelity 
to the test. In this treatise of Politics, especially in the 
broad assertion that good faith is only to be preserved so 
long as it is advantageous, he leaves Machiavel and 
31* 



366 APPENDIX. 

Hobbes at some distance, and may be reckoned the most 
phlegmatically impudent of the whole school." — Hallam : 
Literature, vol. iv. p. 362. 

When Hallam speaks of the light veil which Spinoza 
and Hobbes, and others used, to conceal their real opin- 
ions, and save themselves from the ignorant fury of the 
religious world, he should remember that they, in sober 
honesty and the love of truth, took care that the veil was 
transparent enough to be seen through : while many who 
have called themselves philosophers have spent their lives 
in nursing their own reputation by flattering the prejudices 
of the world ; not caring what becomes of the ship of the 
state so long as they save themselves in the cockboat of 
their own fortunes. Thus, many who are in high favor 
and esteem, are, in truth, but lying hypocrites, walking 
through life under a mask, put on according to the fash- 
ion of men's prejudices and superstitions in their time. 
Thus, instead of helping the world on, they only help to 
obstruct the way. Thus it is with many of our saintly 
philosophers, — wise in their own generation. What the 
next will think of them, time will show. — H. G. A. 



S._ (Page 185.) 

THE ACARUS CROSSSII. 

Letter from Mr. Crosse to H. Martineau. 

"Madam, — Your communication of August the 3d is 
now before me. I shall endeavor to reply to your ques- 
tions in such a manner as they deserve. 

" Allow me, in the first place, to state, that I have not 



APPENDIX. 367 

the slightest objection to your dealing as you please with 
this answer of mine. You are welcome to publish it, if 
you think proper ; or thrust it into the fire, where many 
of those kind commentators on some of my experiments 
would gladly have thrust me. It is the bounden duty of 
philosophical men not to reject or admit as fact any asser- 
tion wihout close and fair investigation. This would save 
a world of trouble, and be of the highest importance to 
the science concerned. 

" Ever since I have enjoyed the faculty of thinking, 
two feelings, apparently somewhat opposed to each other, 
have been predominant in my mind ; — the first exciting 
within me an ardent wish of knowing more ; and the last 
causing a conviction, that the utmost extent of human 
knowledge is but comparative ignorance. Feeling as I 
have done, the whole of my life, — it is not likely that I 
should plume myself upon any imaginary successful result 
of a course of experiments, or that 1 should presume to 
lay down a theory upon so mystical, and perhaps unap- 
proachable, a subject as the origin of animal life. 

" As to the appearance of the acari, under long-continued 
electrical action, I have never, in thought, word, or deed, 
given any one a right to suppose that I considered them 
as a creation, or even as a formation from inorganic mat- 
ter. To create, is to form a something out of a nothing. 
To annihilate, is to reduce that something to a nothing. 
Both of these, of course, can only be the attributes of 
the Almighty. In fact, I can assure you, most sacredly, 
that I have never dreamed of any theory sufficient to 
account for their appearance. I confess that I was not a 
little surprised, and am so still, and quite as much as I 
was, when the acari made their first appearance. Again, 
I have never claimed any merit as attached to these 
experiments. It was a matter of chance. I was looking 



368 APPENDIX. 

for siliceous formations, and animal matter appeared in- 
stead. The first publication of my original experiment 
took place entirely without my knowledge. Since that 
time, and surrounded by death and disease, I have fought 
my way in the different branches of the science which I 
so dearly love, and have endeavored to be somewhat 
better acquainted with a few of its mysteries. Now, 
suppose that a future son of science were to discover 
that certain novel arrangements should produce an effect 
quite contrary to all preconceived opinion, would this 
discovery, however vast it might be, humanly speaking, 
be such as to stir up in a mind properly constituted, an 
inferior sense of the omniscience of the Creator? It is 
really laughable to anticipate such a result, which could 
only be engendered in the brains of the enemies of all 
knowledge. 

" In a great number of my experiments made by pass- 
ing a long-continued current of electricity through various 
fluids, (and some of them were considered to be destruc 
tive to animal life,) acari have made their appearance , 
but never excepting on an electrified surface, kept con- 
stantly moistened ; or beneath the surface of an electrified 
fluid. In some cases, these little animals have been pro- 
duced two inches below the surface of a poisonous liquid. 
In one instance, they made their appearance upon the 
lower part of a small piece of quartz, plunged two 
inches deep into a glass vessel of fluo-silicic acid, or, in 
other words, into fluoric acid holding silica in solution. 
A current of electricity was passed through this fluid for 
a twelvemonth or more ; and at the end of some months, 
three of these acari were visible on the piece of quartz 
which was kept negatively electrified. I have closely 
examined the progress of these insects. Their first ap- 
pearance consists in a very minute whitish hemisphere 



APPENDIX. 369 

formed upon the surface of the electrified body ; — some- 
times at the positive end, and sometimes at the negative ; 
sometimes between the two, or in the middle of the 
electrical current ; and sometimes upon all. In a few 
days, this speck enlarges and elongates vertically, and 
shoots out filaments of a whitish, wavy appearance, and 
easily seen through a lens of very low power. Then 
commences the first appearance of animal life. If a fine 
point be made to approach these filaments, they immedi- 
ately shrink up and collapse, like zoophytes upon moss ; 
but expand again sometime after the removal of the 
point. Some days afterwards, these filaments become 
legs and bristles, and a perfect acarus is the result, which 
finally detaches itself from its birthplace, and, if under a 
fluid, climbs up the electrified wire, and escapes from the 
vessel, and afterwards feeds either on the moisture on the 
outside of the vessel, or on paper or card, or other sub- 
stance in its vicinity. If one of them be afterwards 
thrown into the fluid in which he was produced, he is 
immediately drowned. They are much annoyed by ex- 
posure to light, and require to be kept on a moist surface 
in a rather warm and dark place. They live for some 
months, but are destroyed by the first frost. I have 
noticed their formation in concentrated solutions of nitrate 
and sulphate of copper, and in various other fluids, but 
generally in silicate of potash, or other siliceous solutions, 
but never in arsenious solutions. In one experiment, 
(which was conducted with every possible caution,) the 
following result took place : I took black gunflints, made 
them red hot, threw them into water, dried and reduced 
them to powder. Of this powder I took one ounce, and 
mixed it with three ounces of carbonate of potash — 
fused the mixture in a crucible for five hours — poured 
the melted mass, which was a soluble transparent glass, 



370 APPENDIX. 

into a heated iron mortar — reduced it to a coarse powder, 
and, while hot, threw it into boiling distilled water, in 
which it was speedily and wholly dissolved. Whilst still 
hot, I poured it into a glass retort, the bulb of which was 
half filled with the solution : — this retort had just been 
washed out with hot alcohol, and was placed in a frame 
made for the purpose ; and its neck was closely stopped 
with a glass stopper, ground to fit perfectly air tight. — 
The long end of the retort was dipped into a glass basin 
of fresh distilled mercury ; and two wires of platinum, 
hermetically sealed, passed through the two opposite 
sides of the retort, and were immediately connected with 
the opposite poles of a weak volcanic battery, in constant 
action. The electric current acted directly on the solu- 
tion of silicate of potash, and oxygen and hydrogen 
gases were evolved, which passed in a succession of 
bubbles out of the long end of the retort, and through the 
mercury in the glass basin. 

" The apparatus was deposited on a shelf in a cupboard, 
in a dark subterranean cellar. Now, observe, first, — that 
the solution was considerably caustic: — next, that the 
portion of atmospheric air above the solution, and con- 
tained in the upper part of the glass retort, was speedily 
driven out by the evolution of the gases, so that the 
atmosphere of the retort was a compound of oxygen and 
hydrogen, and consequently an explosive compound : — 
thirdly, that all contact with atmospheric air was com- 
pletely cut off; — yet at the expiration of 140 days, I 
plainly discovered by the light of a lamp, one fat acarus, 
actively crawling on the surface of the upper part of the 
bulb of the retort. At first I thought that it must be on 
the outside, and I passed my finger over the spot : but 
no, — it was on the inside, and visible for a considerable 
time. I kept this apparatus in action for upwards of a 



APPENDIX. 371 

twelvemonth, but did not detect any other acarus. I 
think it highly probable that others existed, but that they 
fell down, and were lost in the solution. The experiment 
I have not yet published ; but it was most accurately 
made. My friend, Mr. Weekes of Sandwich, has obtained 
similar results with myself. 

" As to what the opinion of scientific men may be on this 
matter, I know not. I have merely described the results 
I have met with ; and I heartily wish that those who 
possess time and patience would institute a series of ex- 
periments on this interesting branch of science. Con- 
flicting opinions have existed, as to whether the acarus 
developed under the above circumstances be of a new 
description or not. I know not whether this may be of 
any consequence, as it is very easy for so minute an ani- 
mal to have escaped particular observation ; and besides, 
I have observed a variety amongst the acari so produced ; 
but this I leave to entomologists. I have never before 
heard of acari having been produced under a fluid ; or 
of their ova throwing out filaments ; nor have I ever 
observed any ova previous to, or during, electrization, 
except that the speck which throws out filaments be an 
ovum : but when a number of these insects, in a perfect 
state, congregate, ova are the result. I may now remark, 
that in several of these experiments, fungi have made 
their appearance ; and, in some cases, have been fol- 
lowed by the birth of acari. In one instance, a crop of 
fungi was produced upon the upper end of a stick of oak 
charcoal, plunged into a solution of silicate of potash, 
kept negatively electrified for a considerable time ; and 
covered by a bell glass inverted over it in a glass dish of 
mercury. The charcoal, before being used, was taken 
red hot from a fire. There is, evidently, a close connec- 
tion between animal and vegetable life ; but one thing is 



372 APPENDIX. 

necessary to be observed : that such experiments as those 
I have just touched on must be varied in every possible 
form, and repeated over and over again, with unflinching 
perseverance, and with the most sharp-sighted caution, in 
order to attain satisfactory results. 

" In conclusion, I must remark, that in the course of 
these and other experiments, there is a considerable 
similitude between the first stages of the birth of acari, 
and of certain mineral crystallizations electrically pro- 
duced. In many of them, more especially in the forma- 
tion of sulphate of lime, or sulphate of strontia, its com- 
mencement is denoted by a whitish speck, — so it is in the 
birth of the acarus. This mineral speck enlarges and 
elongates vertically, — so it does with the acarus. Then 
the mineral throws out whitish filaments, — so does the 
acarus speck. So far it is difficult to detect the difference 
between the incipient mineral and the animal ; but as 
these filaments become more definite in each — in the 
mineral they become rigid, shining, transparent, six-sided 
prisms ; — in the animal, they are soft and waving fila- 
ments, and finally endowed with motion and life. 

" I might add much more to the above sketch, but it 
would be then more fit for a pamphlet than for a letter. 

" Andrew Crosse." 

" However rigid were the conditions in any case 
adopted, thus much is certain ; that the acari have inva- 
riably appeared in the several solutions under electrical 
influences, while their absence has been as invariably 
remarked, in spite of the nicest scrutiny, in all negative 
tests, provided to accompany the respective primary 
experiments." — W. H. Weekes : Letter to the Author of 
Vestiges of Creation. 



APPENDIX. 373 



T. — (Page 208.) 

Speaking in his noble tract upon education of young 
nen when they quit the University, Hobbes says, " They 
low, when poverty or youthful years call them impor- 
iunely their several ways, and hasten them with the sway 
jf friends either to an ambitious and mercenary, or igno- 
rantly zealous divinity ; some allured to the trade of the 
law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and 
heavenly contemplation of justice and equity which was 
never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing 
thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing 
fees ; others betake them to state affairs, with souls so 
unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that 
flattery and court shifts, and tyrannous aphorisms, appear 
to them the highest points of wisdom. Others, lastly, of 
a more delicious and airy spirit, retire themselves, know- 
ing no better, to the enjoyment of ease and luxury, living 
out their days in feast and jollity.'" — Hobbes. 



" Nature, as it is, hath given us but a few sparks of 
understanding, which, by our vicious manners and opin- 
ions, we so effectually quench, that scarce the least glimpse 
of the light of nature appears ; for there are in our minds 
innate principles of virtue, which, if they were suffered 
to grow, would themselves lead us to a happy life. But 
now, as soon as ever we come into the world, we are 
engaged in all manner of depravity and perverseness 
of opinions, so that we seem, together with our nurse's 
milk, to have sucked in errors : and, afterwards, w'nen we 
are brought to our parents, we are delivered over to 
tutors, from whom we imbibe so many mistaken notions, 
32 



374 APPENDIX. 

that truth is found to give way to vanity, and nature her- 
self to yield to opinion." — Cicero, on Grief of Mind. 



" Government should never found academies, for they 
serve more to oppress than to encourage genius. The 
unique method of making the arts and sciences flourish, 
is to allow every individual to teach what he thinks at his 
own risk and peril." — Spinoza. 



Dr. Arnold taught a doctrine precisely similar to that 
taught by the reviled and persecuted Spinoza. Compare 
Arnold's introductory lectures on Modern History : Ap- 
pendix to first lecture. 



U._ (Page 213.) 

" Authorities, I admit, are of little weight in matters of 
science, in the face of positive facts : but it is necessary 
that these facts exist, that they have been subjected to 
severe examination, that they have been skilfully grouped 
with a view to extract from them the truth they conceal. 
He who ventures to treat, a priori, a fact as absurd, wants 
prudence. He has not reflected on the numerous errors 
he would have committed in regard to many modern 
discoveries. I ask for example if there can be any thing 
in the world more bizarre, more incredible, more inadmis- 
sible, than the discovery of Dr. Jenner ! Well ! the bizarre, 
the incredible, the inadmissible, is found to be true ; and 
the preservative against the small-pox is by unanimous 
consent to be sought for in the little postule that appears 
in the udder of the cow." — Arago. 



APPENDIX. 375 

" And like as the West Indies had never been dis- 
covered, if the use of the mariner's needle had not been 
first discovered, though the one be vast regions and the 
other a small motion ; so it cannot be found strange if 
sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of in- 
vention and discovery hath been passed over." — Bacon: 
Advancement of Learning. 



" Whilst men regard the property inherent in matter of 
being self-sustained, and not dropping into annihilation or 
dissolution, as an adamantine necessity in nature, they 
ought to permit no method to escape them of torturing 
and agitating matter if they would detect and draw to 
light its ultimate workings and obstinately preserved 
secrets." — Bacon : Thoughts on the Nature of Things. 



" But if any require at least particular promises, let him 
know that by that knowledge which is now in use, men 
are not skilled enough even for wishing. But what is of 
less moment, should any of the politicians, whose custom 
it is from personal calculations to estimate every thing, or 
from examples of like endeavors to form conjecture, 
presume to interfere his judgment in a matter of this sort, 
I would have told that ancient saying, l Claudus in via, 
cursorem extra viam antevertetf and not to think about 
examples, since the matter is without example." — Bacon : 
Interpretation of Nature. 



" Men see clearly, like owls in the night of their own 
notions, but in experience, as in daylight, they wink and 
are but half-sighted." — Bacon : History of Life and 
Death. 



376 APPENDIX. 

" Some impose upon the world that they believe that 
which they do not : others, more in number, make them- 
selves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate 
into what it is to believe." — Montaigne. 



V. — (Page 225.) 

" Those who frequently contemplate the entire subjection 
of every part of the animal frame to the laws of chemistry, 
and the numerous processes through which all the organs 
of the human body must pass after death, acquire habits 
of imagination unfavorable to a hope of an independent 
existence of the thinking principle, or of a renewed 
existence of the whole man. These facts have a more 
certain influence than any reasonings on the habitual 
convictions of men. Hence arises, in part, the prevalent 
incredulity of physicians. The doctrine of the resur- 
rection could scarcely have arisen among a people who 
buried their dead. 

" 18th — Sunday. — I went to the funeral sermon. The 
principal part consisted of some arguments of the immor- 
tality of the soul. In the eloquence of Cicero, of Fenelon, 
and Addison, the reasons in behalf of this venerable and 
consolatory opinion had appeared strong and sound ; but, 
in the preacher's statement, they shrunk into a mortifying 
state of meagreness, and contemplations passed in my 
mind which I should be almost afraid to communicate to 
any creature. 

"19th. — In the necessary ascending progress of the 
understanding to divert the infinite perfect-Being of all 
resemblance to imperfection, he at length approaches a 



APPENDIX. 377 

very faint and imperfect personality. I acknowledge, 
indeed, that the heart has an equally inevitable descending 
progress; in which the divinity is more and more indi- 
vidualized, brought nearer, and made liker to ourselves, 
that he may be more the object of affection. But to 
confine myself to speculation ; a person, commonly called 
an Atheist, might certainly feel the most ardent moral 
enthusiasm, or the warmest love of perfect virtue ; he, 
consequently, has the feeling, of which devotion is a 
modification or another name. This perfect virtue he 
must often personify. How small is the difference, in 
pure speculation, between the evanescent individuality to 
which the reasonings of the philosophical Theist reduce 
or exalt the divinity, and the temporary mental reality 
into which the imagination of him who is called an Atheist 
brightens his personification of virtue ! 

" Let me apply the same mode of examination to the 
other elements of religion, the doctrine of a future state. 
The foundation of that doctrine is the desire that beings, 
capable of an indefinite progress in virtue and happiness, 
may accomplish the destiny which seems open to them, 
and the belief that the interruption of that noble progress 
by death is only apparent. The fear of hell, or the desire 
of reward for ourselves, may, like the fear of the gallows, 
prevent crimes ; but, at most, it can only lead to virtue ; 
it never can produce it. I leave below me those coarse, 
rude notions of religion which degrade it into a supplement 
to police and criminal law. All such representations are 
more practically atheistical, more derogatory from the 
grandeur of religious sentiment, than any speculative 
system called Atheism. When the mind is purified from 
these gross notions, it is evident that the belief of a future 
state can no longer rest on the merely selfish idea of pre- 
serving_ its own individuality. When we make a further 
32* 



378 APPENDIX. 

progress, it becomes indifferent whether the same indi- 
viduals who now inhabit the universe, or others who do not 
yet exist, are to reach that superior degree of virtue and 
happiness of which human nature seems to be capable ; 
the object of desire is the quantity of virtue and happi- 
ness — not the identical beings who are to act and enjoy. 
Even those who distinctly believe in the continued exist- 
ence of their fellow-men, are unable to pursue their 
opinions through any considerable part of its consequences : 
the dissimilarity between Socrates at his death, and Soc- 
rates in a future state, ten thousand years after death, 
and ten thousand times wiser and better, is so very great, 
that to call these two beings by the same name is rather 
a consequence of the imperfection of language, than of 
exact views in philosophy. There is no practical identity. 
The Socrates of Elysium can feel no interest in recollecting 
what befell the Socrates at Athens. He is infinitely more 
removed from his former state than Newton was in this 
world from his infancy. 

" Now the philosopher, who for his doubts is called an 
Atheist, may desire and believe the future progress of 
intelligent beings, though he may doubt whether the pro- 
gress being made by the same individuals be either proved 
or very important. His feelings will scarcely differ at all, 
and his opinion very little, from him who is called a Theist. 
When I speak of a coincidence of feeling, I confine myself 
to those primary feelings which are the root of the opinion ; 
for there are derivative feelings which arise out of these 
differences, rather in modes of thinking than in opinion, 
of the utmost importance in their operation on human life. 
That importance arises from the greater or less difficulty 
of maintaining the love of perfect virtue, and the desire 
of future progress, according to two different habits of 
thought. In this practical point, Theism has a great 



appendix.' 379 

superiority. The ideas are more definite. They more 
resemble the common objects of pursuit ; they more easily 
enter the imagination and affect the feelings ; and they 
mingle more naturally, as well as blend more completely, 
with all the active principles. The other manner of think- 
ing, which presents qualities, rather than individuals, to the 
mind, is not adapted to excite any feelings in the immense 
majority of men. It will produce ardent feelings in very 
few, and stable sentiments, perhaps, scarcely in any in- 
dividual educated in the present circumstances of the 
world. The difference is great, but it is almost entirely 
practical. Morality is usually said to depend upon religion ; 
but this is said in that low sense in which outward conduct 
is considered morality. In that higher sense in which 
morality denotes sentiment, it is more exactly true to say, 
that religion depends on morality, and springs from it — 
virtue is not the conformity of outward actions to a rule ; 
nor is religion the fear of punishment or the hope of 
reward. Virtue is the state of a just, prudent, benevolent, 
firm, and temperate mind. Religion is the whole of those 
sentiments which such a mind feels towards an infinitely 
perfect being. 

" I am pleased with contemplations which trace piety to 
so pure and noble a source — which show that good men 
have not been able to differ so much from each other as 
they imagined ; that, amidst all the deviations of the un- 
derstanding, the beneficent necessity of their nature keeps 
alive the same sacred feelings ; and that Turgot and 
Malesherbes, so full of love for the good and fair, had not 
apostatized from the true God of Socrates and Jesus." — 
Life of Mackintosh, ii. 120-123. 



380 APPENDIX. 



W.—( Page 243.) 

" A certain Queen, in some South Sea Island, I have 
read in Missionary books, had been converted to Chris- 
tianity, did not any longer believe in the old gods. She 
assembled her people, said to them, ' My faithful people, 
the gods do not dwell in that burning mountain in the 
centre of our isle. , That is not God, no, that is a com- 
mon burning mountain ; mere culinary fire burning under 
peculiar circumstances. See, I will walk before you to 
that burning mountain ; will empty my wash bowl into 
it, cast my slipper over it, defy it to the uttermost, and 
stand the consequences ! ' She walked accordingly, this 
South Sea heroine, nerved to the sticking-place ; her 
people following in pale horror and expectancy : she did 
her experiment; — and, I am told, they have truer no- 
tions of the gods in that island ever since ! Experiment 
which it is now very easy to repeat, and very needless. 
Honor to the brave, who deliver us from phantom 
dynasties in South Sea islands, and in North ! " — Car- 
lyWs Cromwell, i. 444. 



X. — (Page 250.) 

We shall soon be exhibiting our fine fabrics to all the 
world ; but of the fabric of the mind we know nothing : 
and, stranger still to say, we don't seem to care to know. 
We follow our crude notions and blind instincts, like a 
very worm that crawls, rather than walk erect in true 
manhood and the light of knowledge. We neglect the 



APPENDIX. 381 

true prerogative of man, to know himself, and to guide 
himself by that knowledge. We try to frighten men to 
good behavior, and endeavor to patch up grievances, and 
the last thing we appeal to is the law and authority of Na- 
ture herself. As knowledge advances, step by step, the 
world falls back upon precedents and parchments, endeav- 
oring to shut out the light, and ruin the philosophy, 
and the noblest benefactors of their race have been scoffed 
at in the streets, and hunted out of their country like poor 
Windsor, for his gas-lighting ; who, escaping with his 
life, died in poverty abroad. It will be long, I fear, be- 
fore there is any efficient and general system of training 
and education, and men fully recognize the fact that the 
interest of each is in the advance of the whole ; and that 
the many are not to be sacrificed for the selfish aggran- 
dizement of the few. I cannot tell you with what delight 
I read the following announcement in the Times, which 
should be printed in gold. " There appears, we rejoice 
to say, but little doubt that the recent reforms in the 
military economy have stood the test of experience. So 
far has discipline been unaffected by the practical abolition 
of corporal punishment, that it has reached a higher pitch 
than ever ; and it has been observed, by careful compari- 
son, that whereas a soldier once flogged was perpetually 
exposing himself to a repetition of the penalty, those sub- 
jected to the operation of less brutalizing discipline are 
rarely found offending again. The readiness to receive 
instruction is quite remarkable." After this, I trust the 
Times will cease to advocate, not only that " brutalizing" 
but devilish custom of capital punishments. I believe my 
old school, the Charter House, still disgraces itself by a 
brutal use of the rod. I am sorry to say, that I have ever 
found clergymen advocate harsh measures — in not sparing 
the rod — and by upholding capital punishment on the 



382 APPENDIX. 

authority of the Scriptures ; and military men declaring 
the " brutalizing " discipline indispensable in the army. 
0, how sick I have felt to hear them declare opinions 
which I knew to be as false as they were brutal ! 



Y. — ( Page 253.) 

" This, then, is the office of the real priests of God, 
whether found on thrones, or in council chambers, in 
pulpits or professors' chairs, or merely at writing tables ; 
to render more truly humane the human race around 
them. Whether for their reward thorns shall grow for 
them on earth, or palms in heaven, need concern them 
little. I, at least, no longer felt myself troubled with 
thoughts of what might be my fate after death. I had a 
living certainty of the providence of God, and that tran- 
quillized me concerning all the rest. 

" It was at this time I wrote the ' Yearning after the 
Invisible,' which expressed the joyful state of my feelings. 
I often smiled at the strange proofs of the immortality of 
the soul, which philosophers had discovered, and thought 
that pure, disinterested virtue would be an impossibility to 
us, if we possessed any absolutely irrefragable proof, any 
indubitable certainty on this point. I thought, like Petrons 
Pomponatus, an independent thinker of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, who, I may say, en passant, was one of my old 
favorites, ' a virtue which should depend on the fear of 
punishment, or the hope of reward in eternity, could be, 
at best, but a holy virtue, or, perhaps, only a kind of 
mercantile speculation.' " — Life of Zschokke, p. 134. 



APPENDIX. 383 

Z. — (Page 261.) 

In recording some of those singular instances of per- 
sons living for weeks and months, and even for years, 
without food, cases similar to the one I had under my 
charge, and to that which is now existing near to Bath, 
and to the still more extraordinary instance of the Fakeer, 
in India, witnessed by Sir Claude Wade, Dr. Mason Good 
remarks, in his Book of Nature (Pub. 1820), that " Air 
or water, or either separately, may contain the rudimental 
materials of all the rest. We behold metallic stones, and 
of large magnitude, fall from the air ; and we suppose 
them to be formed there ; we behold plants suspended in 
the atmosphere, and still, year after year, thriving and 
blooming, and diffusing odors ; we behold insects appar- 
ently sustained from the same source : and worms, fishes, 
and, occasionally, man himself, supported from the one or 
the other, or from both. These are facts : and as facts 
alone we must receive them ; for we have, at present, no 
means of reasoning upon them. There are innumerable 
mysteries in matter, as well as in mind ; and we are not 
yet acquainted with the nature of those elementary prin- 
ciples from which every compound proceeds, and to which 
every thing is reducible. We are equally ignorant of 
their shapes, their weight, or their measure." And again, 
in reference to certain uncommon states of sleep and 
trance, both in the cases of man and other animals, he 
says, " These are extraordinary facts, and may be diffi- 
cult to be comprehended : but they are facts nevertheless ; 
and may be proved at any time, by any person." But all 
things are easily comprehended, when the conditions are 
ascertained ; and Liebig thus gives us 
"hopes," ,._ 
'• the time will come, although, perhaps, the present gen- 



384 APPENDIX. 

eration will barely live to see it, when a numerical expres- 
sion for chemical formulae shall have been obtained for 
the measurement of all the normal energies of the organ- 
ism, and of the deviations in the functions of individual 
parts, by means of the corresponding deviations in the 
composition of the matter of which these parts consist, 
or of the products to which they give rise." — Chemistry 
and Physics in relation to Physiology and Pathology. 



A A. — (Page 287.) 

THE PREACHING EPIDEMIC OF SWEDEN. 

By Mary Howitt. 

" One of the most singular psychological phenomena 
of the present day has occurred in Sweden ; and as but 
little, if any thing, is known of it by the British public at 
large, I think it will be interesting to the readers of this 
Journal to lay before them such information as I have 
been able to obtain on the subject. 

" That portion of southern Sweden formerly called 
Smaland, and which now comprises the provinces of Kal- 
mar, Wexio, and Jonkoppin, though one of the poorest 
parts of the kingdom, is inhabited by a laborious and con- 
tented people. Their lot, which is one of extreme suf- 
fering and privation, is rendered endurable to them by 
their natural simplicity of character and deep religious 
feeling. About sixty years ago, a very strong religious 
movement took place among them, which, for political 
reasons, or otherwise, government thought fit to put a 



APPENDIX. 385 

violent stop to, and with great difficulty it was done. 
Whether there be a predisposition among these simple but 
earnest people for religious excitement, we cannot tell ; 
but certain it is, that at the commencement of 1842 the 
singular phenomenon of which we are about to speak 
made its appearance among them ; and from its rapid 
spread, and apparently contagious character, and from the 
peculiar nature of its manifestations, it was popularly 
called the Preaching Epidemic. 

" Dr. J. A. Butsch, Bishop of Skara, in Westgothland, 
wrote a long letter on this subject to Dr. C. F. Wingard, 
Archbishop of Upsala, and Primate of all Sweden, which 
letter is considered so perfectly authority on the matter, 
that it is published in an appendix to Archbishop Win- 
gard's c Review of the Church of Christ,' an excellent 
little work, which has been translated into English by G. 
W. Carlson, Chaplain to the Swedish Embassy in Lon- 
don, a gentleman of great erudition and accomplishments. 
To this letter we shall have frequent occasion to refer. 

" The reader will naturally ask, as the bishop himself, 
does, what is the Preaching Epidemic ? What it really 
was, nobody as yet has been able to say. Among the 
peasantry the most general belief was, that it was an im- 
mediate Divine miracle, in order to bestow grace on such 
as were afflicted with the disease ; and as a means of 
warning and exhortation to those who saw and heard the 
patients. Among others, somewhat above the class of 
peasants, many denied altogether the existence of the 
disease, declaring the whole to be either intentional de- 
ception in the desire of gain and notoriety ; or else self- 
delusion, produced partly by an overstrained religious 
feeling, or by that passion of imitation which is common 
to the human mind. The bishop himself was of opinion 
that it was a disease, originally physical, but affecting the 
33 



386 APPENDIX. 

mind in a peculiar manner. He arrived at this conclu- 
sion by attentively studying the phenomenon itself. At 
all events, bodily sickness was an ingredient in it, as was 
proved from the fact that, although every one affected by 
it, in describing the commencement of their state, men- 
tioned a spiritual excitement as its original cause, close 
examination proved that an internal bodily disorder, at- 
tended by pain, had preceded or accompanied this excite- 
ment. Besides, there were persons who, against their 
own will, were affected by the quaking fits, which were 
one of its most striking early outward symptoms, without 
any previous religious excitement ; and these, when sub- 
jected to medical treatment, soon recovered. 

" The bishop must be a bold man, and not afraid of 
ridicule ; for, though writing to an archbishop, he says 
that though he will not give the disease a name, still he 
will venture to express an opinion ; which opinion is, that 
the disease corresponds very much with what he has heard 
and read respecting the effects of animal magnetism. He 
says that he carefully studied the effect of sulphur and 
the magnet upon several sick persons, and found the 
symptoms of the Preaching Epidemic to correspond with 
the effect of animal magnetism, as given in Kluge's 
' Versuch einer Darstellung des Animalischen Magnetis- 
mus als Heilmittel.'' In both cases there was an increase 
of activity of the nervous and muscular system ; and, 
further, frequent heaviness in the head, heat at the pit of 
the stomach, prickling sensation in the extremities, con- 
vulsions and quakings ; and, finally, the falling, frequently 
with a deep groan, into a profound fainting fit or trance. 
In this trance, the patient was in so perfect a state of in- 
sensibility to outward impressions, that the loudest noise 
or sound would not awaken him, nor would he feel a 
needle thrust deeply into his body. Mostly, however, 



APPENDIX. 387 

during this trance, he would hear questions addressed to 
him, and reply to them ; and, which was extraordinary, 
invariably in these replies applied to every one the pro- 
noun thou. The power of speech, too, in this state, was 
that of great eloquence, lively declamation, and the com- 
mand of much purer language than was usual, or appar- 
ently possible, for him in his natural state. The invari- 
able assertions of all the patients, when in this state, 
were, that they were exceedingly well, and that they had 
never been so happy before ; they declared that the 
words they spoke were given to them by some one else, 
who spoke by them. Their disposition of mind was 
pious and calm ; they seemed predisposed for visions and 
predilections. Like the early Quakers, they had an aver- 
sion to certain words and phrases, and testified in their 
preaching against ' places of amusement, gaming, excess 
in drinking, 1 May-pole festivities, gay clothing, and the 
crooked combs which the peasant women wear in their 
hair, and which, no doubt, were objects of vanity and 
display. 

" There was in some families a greater liability to this 
strange influence than in others ; it was greater also in 
children and females than in grown-up people and men ; 
and amongst men, those of a sanguine, choleric temper- 
ament are most susceptible. The patients invariably 
showed a strong desire to be together, and seemed to feel 
a sort of attraction, or spiritual affinity, to each other. In 
places of worship, they would all sit together ; and it was 
remarked that when a person afflicted with the Preaching 
Epidemic was questioned about the disease in himself 
individually, he always gave his answer on behalf of 
them all, and thus said ' we ' where the inquirer naturally 
expected ' V 

" From these facts the learned bishop infers that the 



388 APPENDIX. 

Preaching Epidemic belonged to that class of operations 
which have been referred to animal magnetism. He says 
that, whatever may be the cause of this singular agency 
or influence, no doubt exists of its always producing a 
religious state of mind, which was strengthened by the 
apparently miraculous operations from within. He goes 
then into the question, whether the religious impression 
produced be in accordance with the established notions 
of the operations of ' grace on the heart,' and decides this 
not to be the case, because ' the excited person, immedi- 
ately after he begins to quake, experiences an unspeak- 
able peace, joy, and blessedness, not on account of new- 
born faith through atoning grace, but by a certain imme- 
diate and miraculous influence from God.' These are 
the bishop's own words. But with the polemical question 
we have nothing to do. However, the bishop goes on to 
say, that, ' whatever the origin of the disease may be, it 
characterizes itself by Christian language, and makes its 
appearance with many truly Christian thoughts and 
feelings ; ' and that, ' probably, the disease has univer- 
sally met with something Christian, previously implanted 
in the heart, to which it has, in an exciting way, allied 
itself.' 

" With respect to the conduct and conversation of the 
patients, during the time of their seizure, he says he never 
saw any thing which was improper, although many strange 
rumors to the contrary were circulated and believed, to 
the great disadvantage of the poor people themselves. In 
the province of Elfsborg, where the disease prevailed to 
a great extent, bands of children and young people under 
its influence went about singing what are called Zion's 
hymns, the effect of which was singularly striking, and 
even affecting. He says that to give a complete and de- 
tailed description of the nature of the disease would be 



APPENDIX. 389 

difficult, ' because, like animal magnetism,' — we use his 
own words — ' it seems to be infinite in its modification 
and form.'' In the above-mentioned province of Elfsborg, 
it was often said, ' Such and such a person has begun to 
quake, but he has not as yet dropped down, nor has seen 
visions, nor has preached.' 

" This quaking, of which so much is said, appears to 
have been the first outward sign of the influence ; the 
inward vision and the preaching being its consummation ; 
though when this consummation was reached, the fit 
mostly commenced by the same sign. Nevertheless, in 
some patients the quaking decreased in proportion to the 
strength which the disease gained. These quakings 
also seem to have come on at the mention of certain 
words, the introduction of certain ideas, or the proximity 
of certain persons or things, which in some mysterious 
manner appeared inimical or unholy to the patient. 
Sometimes, also, those very words and things which at 
first affected the patient ceased to do so as he advanced 
to the higher stages of the disease ; and other words or 
things, which hitherto had produced no effect, began to 
agitate him in the same way. One of the patients ex- 
plained this circumstance thus — that according as his 
spiritual being advanced upward, ' he found that there 
existed in himself, and in the world, many things which 
were worse than that which previously he had considered 
as the worst.' In some cases the patients were violently 
affected by the simple words, 4 yes,' and 4 no ; ' the latter 
word in particular was most painful and repulsive to them, 
and has frequently been described by them as ' one of 
the worst demons, tied with the chains of darkness in the 
deepest abyss.' It was remarked also that they frequent- 
ly acted as if they had a strong temptation to speak 
falsehood, or to say more than they were ' at liberty to 
33* 



390 . APPENDIX. 

say.' They would therefore exhort each other to speak 
the truth ; and so frequently answered dubiously, and 
even said they did not know, when a contrary answer 
might have been confidently expected, that an unpleasant 
impression was frequently produced on the mind of the 
hearer ; and some persons imbibed from this very circum- 
stance unfavorable ideas of their truthfulness ; when, in 
fact, this very caution and hesitation was a peculiarity of 
the disease. 

" In the province of Skaraborg, the bishop says he has 
seen several persons fall at once iuto the trance, without 
any preparatory symptom. In the province of Elfsborg, 
the patients preached with their eyes open, and standing; 
whilst in his own province of Skaraborg, he himself saw 
and heard them preaching in a recumbent posture, and 
with closed eyes, and altogether, as far as he could dis- 
cover, in a state of perfect insensibility to outward impres- 
sions. He gives an account of three preaching girls, in 
the parish of Warnham, of ages varying from eight to 
twelve. This account, but principally as relates to one 
of them, we will lay before the reader. 

" It was shortly before the Christmas of 1842, when he 
went, together with a respectable farmer of the neighbor- 
hood, the Rev. Mr. Linqvist, and the Rev. Mr. Smed- 
mark, to the cottage where a child lived, who, by all ac- 
counts, had advanced to the highest stage of the disease. 
Many persons, besides himself and his friends, were 
present. As regards all the three children, he says that, 
for their age, as is generally the case in Sweden, they 
were tolerably well informed on religious matters, and 
could read well. They were naturally of good disposition, 
and now, since they had been subject to the disease, were 
remarkable for their gentleness and quiet demeanor. 
Their manners were simple, as those of peasant children ; 



APPENDIX. 391 

but, being bashful and timid, were not inclined to give 
much description of their feelings and experience ; still, 
from the few words they spoke, it was evident that, like 
the rest of the peasantry and their own relatives, they 
considered it a divine influence, but still asserted that they 
knew not exactly what to think either of themselves or 
their situations. When in the trance, they declared that 
they were exceedingly well ; that they never had been so 
cheerful, or felt so much pleasure before. On being 
awoke, however, they complained, sometimes even with 
tears, of weakness in the limbs, pain in the chest, head- 
ache, &c. 

" In the particular case of the one child to which we 
have referred, the symptoms were precisely the same : 
there came on, in the first place, a violent trembling or 
quaking of the limbs, and she fell backwards with so 
much violence as to give the spectator a most painful 
sensation — but no apparent injury ensued. The patient 
was now in the trance, or state of total unconsciousness, 
and this trance, which lasted several hours, divided itself 
into two stages, acts, or scenes, totally different in char- 
acter. In the first place, she rose up violently, and all 
her actions were of a rapid and violent character. She 
caught at the hands of the people round her ; some she 
instantly flung aside, as if the effect produced by them 
was repugnant to her ; others she held gently, patted, and 
rubbed softly : and these the people called ' good hands/ 
Sometimes she made signs, as if she were pouring out 
something, which she appeared to drink ; and it was said 
by her father and another man present, that she could 
detect any one in the company who had been dram- 
drinking; and she would in this way represent every glass 
he had taken. She went through — for what purpose it 
seems impossible to say — the operation of loading, pre- 



392 APPENDIX. 

senting, and firing a gun, and performed most dramati- 
cally a pugilistic combat, in which she alone sustained 
and represented the action of both parties ; she likewise 
acted the part of a person dressing ; and what rendered 
all this most extraordinary was, that, though she was but 
a simple, bashful, peasant child, clad in her peasant's dress 
— a sheepskin jacket — yet all her actions and move- 
ments were free, and full of the most dramatic effect : 
powerful and vigorous when representing manly action, 
and so indescribably graceful and easy, and full of sen- 
timent, when personating female occupations, as to amaze 
the more cultivated spectators ; and, as the bishop says, 
to be ' far more like the motions of an image in a dream 
than a creature of flesh and blood.' Another circumstance 
is peculiar : although these children differed from each 
other in their natural state, yet, while under the influence 
of the disease, their countenances became so similar as 
greatly to resemble each other. 

" To return now to the child who had advanced into the 
second stage of the trance ; this was characterized by a 
beautiful calmness and quietness of demeanor and coun- 
tenance ; and with her arms folded meekly on her breast, 
she began to preach. Her manner in speaking was that of 
the purest oratory ; her tones were earnest and solemn, and 
the language of that high spiritual character which, when 
awake, it would have been impossible for her to use. 

" The little discourse ran somewhat as follows, for the 
bishop noted it down on his return home : — 

" ' My friends, let us turn from the evil of our ways ; 
let us, my friends ! The Savior wishes it. Think how 
pleasant it would be to come to him ; and if we would 
we might. He does not desire that any one should 
perish : from the lowest depths of hell all may be saved, 
and come to Him. How pleasant it will be to come to 



APPENDIX. 393 

Him ; to receive our wedding garments, and sit down with 
Him. O, how pleasant that will be ! 

" l But if we will not turn to Him, we commit a great 
sin, and grieve him. Think, if he meet us with angry- 
looks ; think, if he bid us go to the left side ! to the place 
of darkness, where we are separated from him ! Knock 
gently, knock gently, my friends, and he will certainly 
open to you. 

" ' Then let us now, my dear friends, raise a sigh — a 
good sigh — which shall penetrate through the clouds to 
the Savior! Let us go in the narrow way; let us go in 
the thorny path ! Will you not go there ? Then I will go 
there by myself alone ; but go you also, and do not think 
that it is painful ! It is not painful, if we only go to the 
Savior! And though I am young, and my words are 
those of a child, yet you must believe them. Although 
they are the words of a child, they are meant for 
your well being! For God's sake, believe them, dear 
friends ! ' 

" Such were some of the words of the child, who, in this 
extraordinary state, had something saintlike in her appear- 
ance. Her utterance was soft and clear ; not a word was 
retracted or repeated : and her voice, which in her waking 
state had a peculiar hoarseness, had now a wonderful 
brilliancy and clearness of tone, which produced great 
effect. The whole assembly observed the deepest silence, 
and many wept. 

" These children, during all the time they were subject 
to this influence, had, as the parents stated, tolerably good 
appetites, although they were particular as to the food they 
ate, taking, by preference, milk and fruit, especially dried 
apples and cherries, of which it was necessary for the 
parents to keep a good stock. 

M The bishop tells us that these children were cured by 



394 APPENDIX. 

medicines which he himself procured for them. The dis- 
ease, according to his account, was frequently cured thus, 
though generally in its earlier stages. He does not any 
where state that death was the consequence of it ; though 
he says that the patient sometimes foretold his own death. 
He tells us that many of the ' quaking people ' were 
taken to the hospitals, and on their arrival there were 
found to be free from any symptom of the disease what- 
ever ; but scarcely had they returned home, when it again 
appeared in its full force. Many individuals also, by 
means of a firm will and a faithful endeavor to coun- 
teract it, succeeded in doing so. Others, on the contrary, 
from their belief of the disease being of a divine character, 
became predisposed for the contagion, both bodily and 
mentally ; and thus, being attacked, helped to make it 
worse by their own superstition and submission to it. 

" He concludes by saying, that as the phenemenon in 
question lay out of the sphere of human knowledge and 
experience, its extraordinary and miraculous character 
struck the mind with awe, which produced a very general 
religious movement among the perfectly healthy portion of 
the community. The consequence of this has been to send 
multitudes of persons to the churches and meeting-houses, 
who otherwise would never have gone there ; and in many 
instances it has effected the most vital change in life and 
sentiments. Many a one has thus become a diligent 
reader of the Scriptures, and has been weaned from 
drunkenness and other vices ; and showy dresses, crooked 
combs, dancing, and the much-abhorred May-pole merri- 
ment, in many parts, have fallen into disuse. The bishop 
himself saw by the roadside a May-pole which had been 
cut down from this cause ; and he also knew a poor man 
who gained his livelihood by fiddling, who burnt his 
violin, that it might not be a cause of sin to himself or 



APPENDIX. 395 

others. How like is this to many a passage in the books 
of the early Quakers ! 

" In the province of Skaraborg alone, where the disease 
did not prevail so generally as in other parts, the number 
of persons affected by it amounted, in 1843, to from two 
to three thousand ; and in this province many healthy 
people, particularly boys, gave themselves out as belong- 
ing to this class, and rambled from place to place, making 
religious harangues, and thus gaining a good livelihood. 
These impostors were often mistaken for the preaching- 
diseased, and through their means honest afflicted persons 
were brought into discredit, and often made to suffer. 

" As in the case of the Bishop of Skara, the clergy, 
throughout the districts where the disease prevailed, used 
all the means in their power to put a stop to it, but in 
vain ; the governors of the provinces then interfered. 
Medical men were sent out ; many of the patients placed 
in hospitals, and others were attended at home ; and by 
the end of 1843, the disease had almost ceased to exist. 
Nothing of the kind seems to prevail at present : but as I 
am informed by a Swedish clergyman, the good effect pro- 
duced by it on the minds of many an otherwise hardened 
sinner, remains to testify of its truth and reality, although 
no one, whether learned in the science of physical or 
spiritual life, can. yet explain the cause and nature of this 
extraordinary mental phenomenon." — HowiWs Journal. 



A dancing mania extended throughout the whole of 
Germany in 1374. The " sufferers " neither saw nor 
heard, being insensible to external impressions through 
the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies 
conjuring up spirits, whose names they shrieked out; and 



396 APPENDIX. Ci 

some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they 
had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged 
them to leap so high : others, during the paroxysm, saw 
the heavens open and the Savior enthroned with the 
Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the 
age were strangely and variously reflected in their im- 
aginations. 



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Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 

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